Blunkett promises crime reduction
The Home Secretary this afternoon outlined details of the Government’s five-year plan to reduce crime.
David Blunkett has pledged to reduce crime by 15 per cent by 2008 after the Home Office was granted a £2.8 billion increase in funding in the Comprehensive Spending Review.
The details of the plans come after the Prime Minister outlined his vision for the future of law and order of “rebalancing” the system towards victims, cracking down on drug related crime and focussing on community policing.
Key measures include the recruitment of 20,000 new community support officers and the utilisation of new technology such as satellite tracking to monitor offenders and enhanced electronic surveillance at borders and ports.
Also announced are 50 pilot areas to pioneer new ways of tackling anti-social behaviour, concentrating on the worst offenders, and extended fixed penalty notices.
Revealing the plans, Mr Blunkett said: “Security is the key to everything we are doing as a department. From the international stage combating threats from terrorists and organised criminal gangs to ridding the local streets of yobs, our plans make people’s lives safer and more secure.
“By building a safer society we are strengthening communities, making them more confident and better able to take on the responsibility for their own lives and well-being. In this way we are able to build confidence and reduce fear, including fear of difference and change.
He promised to “invest in communities and families to help restore a culture of respect and responsibility”.
“With resources provided by the Government, crime fighting will be driven by people’s local priorities, which neighbourhood policing teams will have to address, making local communities safer and further reducing national crime levels.
“We will target, day and night, the 5,000 prolific offenders who commit almost one in every ten crimes by focusing the efforts of the police and correctional services on them alongside making greater use of tagging and satellite tracking technology.”
“We will continue to use every hi-tech tool at our disposal to bear down on the most persistent offenders.
“Formidable challenges lie ahead. This plan, combined with the CJS strategic plan published today, is a blue-print setting out how we will build on achievement and ensure that the law abiding citizen is the focus of all we do. They will provide a safer more secure society and I’m determined they will be delivered to local people in a way that makes a difference to their lives.”
The Government’s five key objectives are to make citizens feel more secure; ensure more offenders are caught, punished and stop offending; a reduction in drug and alcohol harm; engaging communities in tackling social problems; and preventing abuse of asylum laws and illegal immigration so that legal migrants can be welcomed.
The Conservatives however claim that since David Blunkett became Home Secretary in June 2001, there have been 158 initiatives to crack down on crime and disorder, including a number personally backed by the Prime Minister.
They claim that in 2003, the number of violent crimes committed actually reached one million – an increase of 64 per cent since Labour came to power, saying only they offer a “genuine” solution to the problem.
Tory proposals include the recruitment of 40,000 new police officers, local police accountability and an expansion of the drug rehabilitation system.
