London mayoral elections: What crime and justice policies are on offer?
Sabine Tyldesley, Political Consultant
| Dods Monitoring
In a round-up of the crime and justice commitments featuring in the main London mayoral candidates’ manifestos, Dods Monitoring explains how local policing and increased use of technology form common priorities.
While crime stats have been falling overall, the fear of crime in local areas, particularly with the rise in violent and knife crime, has not. The threat of terrorism also remains prominent in the capital. In response, the London manifestos from the Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens stress the need for the police to be more visible through increased numbers in inner city ‘hot-spots’ and on public transport.
All parties’ manifestos focus on community policing and propose various reforms of local policing tools to provide safer neighbourhoods. The theme of protection of vulnerable groups is a further common denominator, including women and girls at risk of domestic or sexual violence, or religiously-motivated crimes.
Also high on the agenda is: tackling gangs, a zero tolerance approach to hate crime and the improved evidence based use of stop-and-search practices; and a focus on not just fighting but also preventing crime through better anti-gang strategies and early intervention programmes for young people.
The Green Party widens this to crimes committed under the influence of serious drugs, which may be solved by decriminalising less dangerous drugs, and the need to tackle dangerous driving offences.
Much of the campaign so far has seen Zac vs Sadiq focused on tackling extremism. Khan wants to achieve this “through integration and empowerment” while Goldsmith wants to introduce a new industry-led covenant on tackling extremist content. Aside from that much of their manifestos are very similar.
Both propose increasing cyber skills and a greater use of technology such as body-worn cameras. Goldsmith throws in a few more gadgets such as GPS and traceable liquids but both want a new crime app to allow more service user involvement, though Sadiq stops short of allowing residents to have a ‘bank of police time’, as proposed by Zac.
While all parties stress the need for more localised policing, the Conservatives and UKIP have some common ground with their focus to tackle burglary and anti-social behaviour. The Liberal Democrats and UKIP both focus on the need to give Borough Commanders more responsibility and to be more accountable, which the Liberal Democrats extend to 'London's Deputy Mayor for Policing', who will be elected alongside the new mayor on 5 May.
The Dods Monitoring team has also produced sector round ups of all the manifestos published by the main candidates in the London campaign. Please find them at the following links:
Employment and business
Transport
Migration
Financial services and taxes
Housing, local government and planning
Crime and justice
Health, social care and equalities
Food and agriculture
Children, schools and higher education
Devolution, governance and public sector
Culture, media and sport
Energy and environment
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