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Those of you who are avid readers of my site will remember me writing about crime in Hackney in September, when I was trapped in a crime scene after a fatal shooting took place outside my front door in Amhurst Road. Everything I said then still holds true, but after a recent upsurge in knife and gun crime in Hackney these past two weeks, including the tragic murder of Agnes Sina-Inakoju in Hoxton Street, I’d like to write specifically about this issue again. We all know that violent crime is way too high around here. So how do we stop this circle of violence? One way is to ensure that we have enough police. Labour, to be fair to them, have increased the numbers of police, though the Lib Dems will scrap their ludicrously expensive and ineffective ID cards scheme to provide another 3,000 police, and cut back on police red tape to put more officers on the streets. The Tories meanwhile, under Boris Johnson, have amazingly already announced cutting 455 police officers in London. But increasing the numbers of police, and increasing sentencing too for that matter, is treating the symptoms of crime, not the cause. The causes are complex and include a lack of opportunity, a lack of alternative things to do, poor role models, the lure of ‘easy’ money, weak families, a culture of respect that is expressed through crime, and pressure from peers to join. But complex or not, these are the fundamental reasons that kids get drawn into crime, and this is the circle we need to break. It’s best not to wait until someone is carrying a knife or a gun, or in a gang, as it is harder to change that culture. Instead, it is best to stop them years before then. We need to prevent people, especially young people, getting to the point where they are prepared to carry a weapon. How can this be done? Not by concentrating on headline-grabbing gimmicks like minimum sentences for carrying knives and guns, army-style youth offender institutes, or having yet more ASBOs – which are often used as a badge of honour. Prison is not a deterrent either – we imprison more people than any other European country, yet violent crime is rising. What is needed is a long term approach to preventing crime, to dealing with things much earlier on. The Lib Dems would do things like: - Genuinely providing more things to do for youngsters, like well-funded sports clubs, youth clubs, dance classes, theatre etc
- Using community role models, whom they respect, to talk to and mentor youngsters
- Providing better-resourced social care to children who come from troubled homes and need support; there’s no point waiting until they are 13 in a gang and carry a weapon
- Taking children who have been excluded from school and providing establishments where they can continue in education – otherwise they spend their time on the street and fall into crime
- Providing training courses and better career opportunities, so that there is a route to a successful crime-free future.
And when first offences do take place, we need to act in a better way. People who kill are almost always known to the police or other government agencies for something they’ve done beforehand. So we should ensure that action is taken to stop any escalation in their crime. The Lib Dems will do this by: - Providing properly-funded community payback schemes for minor crime, rather than sending people to prison where they learn techniques for more advanced crime. These schemes already exist but often they are poorly funded, criminals get away without having to do much on them so see this as a ‘soft’ option, and magistrates are thus reluctant to use them. None of this need be the case: community payback should be seen as a tough option; it’s proven to cut re-offending elsewhere, so let’s use it properly here. In contrast, short-term prison sentences usually lead to people re-offending when they get released.
- ‘Restorative justice’ – bringing offenders face-to-face with the people who they have mugged or whose houses they have burgled (so long as the victim agrees of course). This works because many young offenders don’t properly realise the pain they cause and it has been shown that, if you quite literally shame them into realising this early enough in their criminal life, before they are too de-sensitised, re-offending rates drop. It helps the victim get over the incident, too.
- Community justice panels – these allow local people to get involved in deciding the appropriate punishment. Andrew Dakers, a Lib Dem Candidate in another part of London, has produced a video on this here , which I am happy to endorse.
- Providing co-ordinated initiatives, like the Hackney Diamond programme, whereby the police work closely with other services to help offenders get back into a support system whereby they don't need to commit more crime. But currently these programmes only operate in a few areas of London.
There is also a lot of evidence that income inequality, which in this country has soared under Labour, leads to a great increase in crime, for both rich and poor alike. The Lib Dems have a policy to rebalance the tax system, in a way that hasn’t happened in a generation, to help reduce inequality, by taxing poorer people much less. Of course, there are people who will say that this will cost money, so why spend it on the kids who are causing trouble, and not the ones who aren’t? Well they’re right, in the short term it will cost money. And there is no denying that the UK’s finances are in a mess right now and money is hard to come by. But I do believe this is the right thing to do, for three reasons: firstly, we as a country should help these children, who have often been let down by their families or by the society around them - we should help them to help themselves, and not to fall into bad ways. Secondly, no-one wants people to be murdered, especially not in their local area. So reducing crime will benefit everyone, not just the people who commit it, but also the potential victims of the future, or the people who live in fear of walking the streets at night. Finally, money spent in preventing crime will reap rewards financially too. It costs us more per person per year to keep them in prison than it does to send them to university. What a waste – let’s break this cycle! I intend living in Hackney for many years, but I don’t want to be stuck inside a police cordon twice in the past year, as I have been. And I don’t want three murders in my road as has happened. So that’s why I pledge, if elected as your MP, I will do everything I can to take the steps necessary to make a real difference to crime, by helping stop people get into crime in the first place, and not to let it soar as it has done for decades under the Tories and Labour, who have only been addressing the symptoms, not the causes.
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