With probably less than a year to go before the next general election we’re all contemplating what a third term Labour government is actually for. According to Richard Reeves in the New Statesman, if the first term was about economic stability, and the second about public service reform, then it’s unequivocal what the third term mantra will be – meritocracy (otherwise known as life chances). I can go with this. If this means pursuing practical but ambitious policies that will allow individuals, regardless of their social and economic background, to increase their prospects of succeeding in life, we’ll all be pleased.
How will we do this though – is it through wider macro policy steers of progressive taxation and redistribution? Possibly so. But what about a workable big idea that will help facilitate this? How about something that’s simple. We all know Mrs Thatcher destroyed the social infrastructure of Britain, but she wasn’t half successful in promulgating simple, straightforward, no-nonsense messages. Remember curtailing the power of trade unions, giving people real and enhanced choice through owning their own homes – selling off council houses? Yes, we all know the disastrous consequences for the country – but that’s not the point – she got her simple message out - and people responded to it, and crucially identified with the Tory party because of that.They were never really Tories; however Mrs Thatcher was supremely successful in striking a chord with the grassroots voter.
Knocking on people’s doors as a Labour councillor over the past thirteen years the most common concerns invariably are crime, anti-social behaviour and lack of respect shown by youngsters. If you don’t believe this, ask my wife, when she’s not wearing her Labour party member’s hat, but when she’s supervising children in the school playground at dinner time. Ask her about the widespread lack of respect, abusive language, and general contempt for those who have any authority.
So what to do? My own big idea is to provide every primary school in the country with a police officer. Now don’t throw your hands up in horror. I’m not an apologist for any authoritarian tendency. It’s quite simply this – get the youngsters and police to build up excellent relationships at the earliest possible opportunity. This builds perfectly upon the excellent work done by the government in investing in early years – Sure Start, the children’s trust fund etc. I even hear that David Blunkett is considering giving a dedicated clinical psychologist to local police stations – as a preventative measure to identify problem families. Plenty of evidence from across the Atlantic points to where primary schools have adopted local cops and there’s been a noticeable drop in crime rates in those areas in later years.
Don’t you think it can work in this country? When I was a member of Nottinghamshire Police Authority in 2001, we piloted a project in one of my local primary schools, where albeit it was for a three month period, every week a police officer visited the school. The children did a lot of work on combating a fear of crime and had great opportunities to build up some really good relationships with the local police. It started to break down the barriers that exist between youngsters and the law enforcers.
In due course the results of the pilot went to the Home Office, which were used to kick start trials in other parts of the country. Nottinghamshire Police do still have police/schools liaison officers who visit schools – but due to lack of funding only a limited programme is provided.
What I am advocating now is more specific letting each primary school have, on a permanent basis, a police officer stationed, with their own office. Then, for example, we could adapt the citizenship curriculum to allow police to contribute to regular lessons for children at primary school age. They could be involved in all other aspects of school life – being inclusive.
Yes, there’s a cost. It’s not a panacea, and it won’t solve problems over night. We do need to ensure we’re continuing to build a society that gives increasing opportunities to parents, whilst at the same time crucially, obliges them to take responsibility for behaviour of their children. But there’s also a cost to not doing anything – continuing lack of respect, continuing anti-social behaviour, and so on.
It is imperative that we make this investment in children’s lives in early years – so that the barriers that build up between youngsters and the police can be taken down.We can combine this work with successful pilots that have been done on restorative justice – bring the perpetrator face to face with their victim.
Crucially giving each primary school a police officer is simple and is not rocket science. It may even allow us to have a good and identifiable mantra for a third term Labour government. Perhaps the most important point, though, is (to coin a familiar phrase) we can do it because it works.