Quakers lobby Labour Party on democracy and justice
'The promising Labour slogan ‘Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’ had not been honoured.'
If elected, Labour must focus on prevention, rehabilitation, and restorative justice to repair the criminal justice system, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has said.
More neighbourhood policing, multi-agency approaches and investment in programmes for young people would help prevent crime, BYM told the Labour Policy Forum.
The promising Labour slogan ‘Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’ had not been honoured, the submission said, and any new strategy must address causes.
The joint submission, made by BYM and Quakers in Criminal Justice to the ‘safe and secure communities’ consultation, also urged Labour to support democracy and civil society. This could be achieved by repealing authoritarian legislation and protecting the independence of bodies such as the Electoral Commission, it said.
Civil society is fundamental to democracy but has been challenged by policy and legislation around protest, campaigning and human rights, it added. Labour must prioritise truth and integrity as underpinning values of democracy.
The submission also called for a radical approach to crime prevention, citing figures that reoffending costs £18 billion every year in England and Wales, while housing one prisoner costs £48,000 a year. It also argued that more strategic attention should be given to restorative justice which has been successfully used with young offenders, but has ‘much more scope to address crime and anti-social behaviour, and reduce conflict in communities’. Highlighting the social value of neighbourhood policing, the wide-ranging submission suggested that Labour ‘should trust the evidence from academic research, think tanks, working parties and committees of enquiry’ and that it should consider ‘how militarised British policing should become’.
BYM said that it is working to influence all the main UK political parties’ policies in the run-up to the next general election.
