Labour
On increased funding:
- Provide the funding to maintain police and PCSO numbers with neighbourhood police teams in every area, spending 80 per cent of their time on the beat visible in their neighbourhood; improve police performance through online police report cards and ensure failing forces are taken over by the best.
On effective action and intervention:
- Intervene earlier to prevent crime, with no-nonsense action to tackle the problems caused by 50,000 dysfunctional families.
- Guarantee fast and effective action to deal with antisocial behaviour, including a right to legal injunctions for repeat victims, funded by the police or council who let them down.
On using technology to cut crime:
- We will continue to make full use of CCTV and DNA technology: new weapons deployed to strengthen our fight against crime. We are proud of our record on civil liberties and have taken the DNA profiles of children off the database and tightened the rules around the use of surveillance – but we are also determined to keep our streets safe.
On punishment and reform:
- We will ensure a total of 96,000 prison places by 2014. More EU and other foreign prisoners will be transferred abroad, and we will work to reduce the number of women, young and mentally ill people in prison. Any spare capacity generated will reduce costs while protecting the public.
- Expand tough “Community Payback” for criminals who don’t go to prison, giving everyone the right to vote on the work they do.
On terrorism and organised crime:
- We will continue to give the police the tools they need to fight terrorism while giving Parliament and the courts oversight to ensure these powers are not overused. We condemn torture, and our police and security services will not co-operate with those who use torture. We will develop our Prevent strategy to combat extremism.
- We will continue to make Britain a hostile place for organised criminals, harassing them with asset seizures, tax investigations and other powers; strengthening the Serious Organised Crime Agency and encouraging police forces to cooperate across force boundaries and international borders; and responding quickly to new threats including cybercrime.
Conservative
On fighting back against crime:
- We will fight back against the crime and anti-social behaviour that blights our communities. We will take steps to reduce the causes of crime, like poverty and broken families. We will put the criminal justice system on the side of responsible citizens, take tougher measures against knife criminals and crack down on the binge-drinking that leads to violence. We will cut paperwork to get police out on the street and give people democratic control over local policing. We will introduce honesty in sentencing and pay voluntary and private providers to reduce re-offending.
On reducing causes of crime:
- Allow councils and the police to shut down permanently any shop or bar found persistently selling alcohol to children
- Double the maximum fine for under-age alcohol sales to £20,000
- Raise taxes on those drinks linked to antisocial drinking, while abolishing Labour’s new ‘cider tax’ on ordinary drinkers
On the criminal justice system:
- We will change the law so that anyone acting reasonably to stop a crime or apprehend a criminal is not arrested or prosecuted, and we will give householders greater legal protection if they have to defend themselves against intruders in their homes.
- We will implement the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996 to allow deductions from the earnings of prisoners in properly paid work to be paid into the Victims’ Fund. We will use this Fund to deliver up to fifteen new rape crisis centres and give existing rape crisis centres stable, long-term funding.
On police reform:
- Amend the health and safety laws that stand in the way of common sense policing
- Give police the power to identify offenders in order to protect the public and prevent crime
- Return charging discretion to the police for minor offences
- Process criminals more quickly by videolinking custody cells and courts.
Liberal Democrat
On bureaucracy:
- Reduce time-wasting bureaucracy at police stations with better technology that can be deployed on the streets.
On police reform:
- Pay for 3,000 more police on the beat, affordable because we are cutting other spending, such as scrapping pointless ID cards.
- Reform the police, with a full review of the very restrictive terms and conditions for police offi cer employment.
On power of local authorities:
- Give local people a real say over their police force through the direct election of police authorities. Authorities would still be able to co-opt extra members to ensure diversity, experience and expertise.
- Give far more power to elected police authorities, including the right to sack and appoint the Chief Constable, set local policing priorities,and agree and determine budgets.
- Strengthen the Youth Service by making it a statutory service, and encourage local authorities to provide youth services in partnership
with young people and the voluntary sector.
On criminal justice:
- Turn the National Policing Improvement Agency into a National Crime Reduction Agency with a wider remit to test what policing techniques
and sentences work and spread best practice across police services and the criminal justice system.
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