Anti-Crime Society Criticises Prime Minister Again

Added: (Tue Oct 26 2004)

Pressbox (Press Release) - (As per letter to the Prime Minister 26th October 2004)

In an attempt to persuade the people of Great Britain that the Government is winning the battle against crime, the Prime Minister told the Media Questions session on the 25th October that there are now more police than ever and that the Government is building more prisons.

As usual, this is a misuse of statistics. We actually need 200,000 police officers right now – not 140,000 - if we are to have a significant presence on our city streets and in our rural areas.

If we are to catch and convict even a modest number of today’s criminals, we need prison places for at least 250,000 convicts not 100,000. The Prime Minister's glibly-presented numbers are so inadequate as to be absurd, unless of course he secretly acknowledges that the Government has neither the ability nor intention of ever solving more than a small fraction of committed crimes, nor of confining those deserving prison sentences.

The Society for Action Against Crime notes that despite being fond of targets for others, Mr. Blair has never accepted it's proposal that he should give David Blunkett a target to reduce crime by 25% or more year-on-year. Had he done so, several million people in Britain would not have become victims of crime and some families would not have suffered the ultimate tragedy of the murder of a loved one.

Not once in the many years since the Society has been writing to Mr. Blair has he asked what proposals the Society for Action Against Crime has for bringing crime tumbling down. Nor, in more than seven years in Office, have Tony Blair, Jack Straw when Home Secretary, or David Blunkett the current Home Secretary, proposed any of the fundamental measures without which people will not be dissuaded from becoming or remaining criminals.

The Prime Minister claims to believe in consultation, but unless and until he meets face-to-face with The Society for Action Against Crime, we must continue to believe his claim is not genuine.

He clearly never looks at our website which is surprising for one so good at picking other people's brains.