Good for Labour, good for Britain
Labour opposed the creation of elected police and crime commissioners. The question now is how Labour can win elections given its opposition. Some in the media wrongly believe that the party finds itself in an awkward position. They ask: how can Labour successfully contest elections it didn’t want? But elected PCCs are not only good for Labour, but they are good for the country, too.
Only Labour stands for preserving frontline services
Labour opposition to elected PCCs is not an opposition to police, but in support of police. The commissioners will have salaries estimated between £65,000 to £100,000 which may cost the taxpayer as much as £4 million. There is also the cost of the election estimated to be about £25 million. There is no substitute for difficult choices in the current economic climate. So ask yourself this: is it a better use of taxpayer funding to pay millions for newly elected commissioners at 43 police forces in England and Wales? Or would it be better to spend this money to reverse the loss of 16,000 police officers?
Labour’s principled opposition to elected PCCs is about protecting frontline services and serving the public. There is no question: the government’s plans will see reduced police numbers. The loss of frontline jobs will also contribute to putting additional pressure on commissioners to find new creative ways of making the most of a difficult situation. The government should have opted to protect police jobs. Labour has demonstrated that it alone stands for preserving frontline services that the public wants. Polls show consistent support for a greater frontline police presence. One clear strategy for satisfying what the public wants is to protect frontline services. People want to know police are available to offer assistance and support. Police numbers should be maintained or even increased.
Labour did what no other party has achieved: it left office with significantly less than when it came to office. This is a record of achievement that Labour should be proud of. Translating results into public confidence has remained a challenge: the public’s perception of crime did not always connect with the reality of falling crime rates. The challenge simply put: we must not only win minds, but also hearts.
An opportunity we should welcome
The election will not be a referendum about whether there should be commissioners, but about the kind of commissioners the public wants to have. This is an opportunity we should all welcome.
The public want police to work with local communities. Elected commissioners have been seen as one important step towards making police services more transparent and accountable to local needs. This is a continuation – and not a break – but Labour’s record in government. During this time, police services become increasingly publicly visible and constructively engaged. For example, Labour increased police numbers to record levels. Moreover, the police more regularly met with local communities to discuss local issues under Labour governments. Labour has always supported greater constructive engagement between local communities and the police: after all, we alone are the party that is ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’. If elected PCCs are about making police services more accountable and transparent to the public, then this is what Labour does best. How can opponents accept these principles while choosing to sack 16,000 police officers? These are jobs they could have saved in opting against creating elected PCCs this year.
Some fear that elected PCCs are bad news for progressives. This is because they may play to public fears about crime and favour excessively punitive approaches. The worry is that the public will support demagogues who promise to be harsh, but this is worry gets it wrong.
I believe the public will support candidates who promise results. Labour has an enviable record on crime reduction that must be trumpeted at every opportunity. We should ensure elections centre on two issues. The first is costs. A purely retributive approach may satisfy the calls from some for public vengeance, but such policies are costly and ineffective. Tough sounding words often lead to economically unsustainable policies. Let our opportunities justify the estimated costs of their heavy handed rhetoric. Costs favour progressive solutions. Community payback and restorative justice programmes first championed by Labour command widespread public support at much reduced costs.
The second issue is crime reduction. Not only do progressive programmes command greater support at lower costs, but they have more promising results on reducing crime. For example, restorative justice has been shown to be more effective at reducing recidivism than its alternatives where it has been employed. If we must do more with less, than progressive approaches to criminal justice can win on the issues of costs and crime reduction that will come to define which candidates will command public support.
The future challenge
There is every reason to believe that the launch of newly elected PCCs is good news for Labour. More importantly, it’s also good news for Britain because Labour’s PCCs have a clear record at reducing crime while reducing costs. We owe it to the public to ensure criminal justice is effective and efficient. This is Labour’s strength. This is also why elected police and crime commissioners are something we should welcome and embrace.
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Dr Thom Brooks lectures in political and legal philosophy at Newcastle University. His website is thombrooks.info and he tweets at @thom_brooks
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there must surely be a link between these cases of abuse and murder related to belief in witchcraft and the fact that young black men are 10 times more likely to become schizophrenic and are being let down by the mental health so called ‘system’.
Hmm replacing a 2/3rds democratically elected police authority with a single person likely to want to pander to the “hang ’em and flog ’em” tendency.
I don’t believe this worry need become a reality. Pandering to gimmicks that look tough, but fail to produce results cannot win in the long term. Sadiq Khan recently argued on ProgressOnline (and he was spot on) that good criminal justice policies will pay for themselves. Tough sounding gimmicks are ineffective and highly costly — we can’t afford either in the present economic climate. Instead, solutions that effectively reduce crime while minimizing costs are the winning ticket. The good news is that these solutions are available and they benefit the progressive cause.
If the government wants elected PCCs, then this is where Labour can succeed for the benefit of the party and the country as we show that criminal justice is a Labour issue — because only we can deliver the best results.
Thom, I agree with you (and Sadiq) in principle, but lest we forget that people don’t always vote on practicalities – they voted the Tories in after all ! Sadly, a harsh law and order message tends to be very popular with the voters, whatever the practicalities of implementation, or even, as you say, the effectiveness of such an approach. It doesn’t matter, so long as we are being horrible to criminals. The same approach adopted by New Labour saw us building untold numbers of new prisons, and cutting back on Probation services.
It’s difficult for Labour’s approach to PCCs – we (rightly) opposed their introduction as a ridiculous gimmick, and now we are expected to take them seriously,
mm
The introduction of Police Commisioners is nonsense beyond belief. It is potentialy handing responsibility for Policing into the hands of a person who might not have a clue about the basics of Policing. This policy has been introduced by the same Government who want to bring in Private Companies to manage some aspcts of Policing. Sadly we will have to live with the prospect of Elected Police Commisioners so we need to crack on and ensure we get the best Candidates into situ–ready for the election in November–it will be upon us very soon.