We are empowering communities to say ‘no’ to those tenants who ruin neighbourhoods. They realise we will evict troublemakers where we can.
Sandwell Council saw 7,501 incidents last year and just one eviction. Falkirk 6,680 incidents and two evictions. Aberdeen 3,017 incidents and no evictions. Wolverhampton 2,495 incidents and four evictions.
There may be a greater role for community sentences, but not as an alternative because the state cannot deliver, or will not pay for, a proper prison system.
Whilst we pat ourselves on the back for reaching our manifesto target, the number of crimes solved continue to fall, and our prisons and courts remain overwhelmed.
Littering, fare-dodging, and shoplifting are minor offenses, but they undermine people’s sense of living in a safe, well-ordered public square.
I am yet to see a plan in place that makes me think this dire situation will get better any time soon.
Here are my suggestions to ministers of five things they must focus on to truly bear down on the challenge that the volume of crime in our times presents.
Criminalising an activity more than a million people each year engage in will create huge new taxpayer-funded costs for our already overstretched police, courts and prisons system.
Basic services – the NHS, policing, schools, road maintenance, refuse collection, you name it – have gone to rack and ruin. Life expectancy has fallen sharply. We still have, to our shame, by far the worst drug death levels in Europe.
Catchy slogans are no substitute for a clear focus on the basics: more officers, proper investigations, and higher solve rates.
Some regard it as a trivial issue. But the voters do not agree. A comprehensive, national, free graffiti removal service could make a big difference.
The proportion of crimes resulting in a charge or summons has fallen by two thirds, from 16 per cent in 2015 to 5.6 per cent today. A quarter of people in England live in areas where the police are in special measures.
A ‘law and order’ party which presides over the effective decriminalisation of burglary is going to end up in serious trouble.
It will deliver the necessary tools to defend the public from a broad range of harms and deliver justice for victims.
Concern about net immigration figures tends to eclipse the significant number of people on course to gain citizenship, and thus the right to vote in general elections.