| Crime |
THE JAILS ARE FULL Crime has spread like a disease through a country that once had a very low crime rate, the lowest in Europe. In 1931 there were 250 crimes per 100,000 of the population, now it is a staggering 10,000. In 1931 there were 11,000 people in prison, now there are 87,000. Needless to say, it is mainly the working classes who are in jail. There is so much crime that the authorities now call violence and threatening behaviour which causes misery across the country "low level crime". We accept no such definition. The middle class left has in the past pretended that the rise in crime is due to poverty. As well as being insulting to the poor who generally do not resort to crime, this is nonsensical - there was more poverty in the 1930s and yet still a low crime rate. The left again say this shows how downtrodden the working classes were then, as if committing crime is a sign of strength and independence of mind. WHO ABOLISHED MORALITY? What has changed is morality, and it is the left who are largely responsible for dismantling our moral values; their doctrine,which allied itself so easily with the demands of capitalism , seeks to destroy any values which prevent the individual from becoming anything more than a greedy consumer. Here, as so often, the twin forces of capitalism and so-called socialism have combined to destroy our communities. Along with the dismantling of our sense of right and wrong, came the effective dismantling of the police force; this process began in the 1960s as the beat system was scrapped. Despite and contrary to, the expressed will of the public Beat Policing has not been restored, even though politicians try to phrase their policing proposals to make it sound as if it has. To the middle class establishment it has long felt uncomfortable to effectively enforce laws they don't really believe in. Irt has to be said also, that as the middle classescarried out their bloodless revolution to take power from the upper classes, in this century, a certain degree of DISORDER was a useful weapon against the establishment as then was; Every reolution needs its mob. Now of course, the NEW ESTABLISHMENT, the middle classes themselves, are beginning to be affected by the chaos. That is why the middle class controlled labour government is finding itself pushed towards the discipline they spent the 1960s and 70s discrediting and dismantling The result has been that crime is largely unchecked and again it is the working classes who suffer most. While crime is still not a fashionable issue for the middle class left to talk about , it effects the daily lives of working class parents and the elderly, and the young, in a drastic and horrible manner. But because the working classes lack a real voice in politics, this issue is still not given the urgent attention it requires. Our proposals THE END OF FEAR, AT LAST! THE RETURN TO REAL BEAT POLICING The streets are ruled by violence and aggression But the day has come when the working classes, as well as the rest of society, should no longer have to live in fear for their lives or the lives of their children. It seems we have gone back to the 18th century, and we need to re-invent the police force, as it was invented then. We propose a complete and comprehensive return to the beat system of policing. This means literally that in the cities and towns and villages all streets would have their own officers patrolling them 24hrs a day. Each large estate, and each village would have its own small police station fully manned, and each town regardless of its size would have its own police station fully manned with enough police to police that town, around the clock. The battle against crime has to be fought at street level, and that can only be done by a police force. A policeman's beat, remember, was an area which he could pass each part of every 10 to 15 minutes. Imagine the difference that would make to our streets. The return to beat policing would require some increase in manpower of as well as a wholesale removal of paperwork. This will require changes in the law and in court procedures, which at present make it absurdly difficult for the police to secure convictions. It would be a priority to consult with the judiciary to remove this absurd burden from the police in carrying out their duty. Ultimately of course, the strength of the police force lies not in their numbers but in the public belief that crime cannot and will not be permitted. This has been lost in our society and having an effective police force, at street level, is one step towards bringing back that belief. THE CERTAINTY OF GETTING CAUGHT IS A FAR BETTER DETERRENT THAN LONG SENTENCES In 1931 there were 110,000 indictable offences reported to the police, today there are an almost unmeasurable 5 million plus, and that at a time when people begin to conclude that there is not much point reporting a crime to the police. There is now almost no limit to the amount of crime. Governments no longer wonder how to tackle crime but how to best deal with the statistics; which crimes is it still worth counting? which crimes can we still afford to punish? There is now more crime than the police can deal with , more crime than the prisons can punish. We have reached super-saturation. The authorities' response is irresponsible , shortsighted and cowardly; ruling parties think only about the records, and nothing about the ruinous affect of crime upon society, the horrible plight of the victims of increasingly violent crime, nor of the wellbeing of the young people drawn into the all too common life of crime or on its fringes. All this has to change. We need to face up to the problem, whatever it takes. We need to decide what we believe in, and what kind of society we want to live in. In this situation, where society, especially in our cities, is literally drowning in a long wave of crime, it is vital that potential law breakers no longer have the near certainly of getting away with it. A strong police presence on street level is the best way to alter that perception. After that comes the courts - NOT LONGER SENTENCES - MORE CONVICTIONS At present there is a tendency to call for stronger sentencing and this is an understandable reaction to the growth of crime. We believe however that it would be better to make convictions of the guilty more likely. Harsh sentencing makes this less likely as juries, even though they are made up of the same people who demand longer sentences, are reluctant to send the individual, standing hapless before them in the dock in his best suit, to a long sentence, and to have it on their personal consciences. This is the same situation as in the 18th century , when indeed lawlessness prevailed against a background of excessive and cruel punishments for small crimes and great crimes alike. Criminlas were very likely to get off scott free for the simple reason that juries were unwilling to convict and send a thief to the gallows. Only a small proportion were unfortunate enough to suffer the full force of the law. The solution was to reduce the severity of punishments. The conviction rate went up, and getting away with crime was longer to be relied upon. The rest of the solution , was the invention of the police force. We need to rediscover ours; FREE THE POLICE FROM PROCEDURES WHICH PREVENT THEM FROM DOING THEIR JOB Procedural rules make it nearly impossible for the police to successfully present evidence before the courts, and which result in many guilty defendants escaping punishment. It also means that even a simple search, let alone an arrest, requires hours of a police officer's time doing paperwork afterwards. It is almost as if government wants to prevent the police from doing their job. This is a double disaster for it means the police have to spend much of their time coping with this difficulty in paperwork, when they should be out on the streets preventing crimes from happening. It is one of the first functions of government to provide safety for law abiding citizens, this duty has been neglected by successive governments, all of which have claimed to be specialists on law and order and were elected partly on that understanding. Visitors to Britain between the wars remarked how aggression had been suppressed to such a degree that our streets were the safest in Europe. Now they are some of the most violent. THE RETURN OF GOOD MANNERS Far from being outmoded as the trendy left would have us believe, good manners are essential to civilisation, and should be encouraged and expected in homes and schools. Politeness and consideration for others is buffer against violence and cruelty. Once removed it is always only a short step to violence and then to murder. This is not an idea, this is a reality facing communities across Britain, where murder after murder is committed , often by the young, and often after nothing more than a trivial quarrel. This is the real situation on our streets, where the experiment of removing the old fashioned and outmoded British politeness has been well and truly tried. Perhaps the middle classes haven't noticed, but the result is a dangerous and aggressive environment , where even children are a danger to adults and other children, and where adults can quickly end up in fights which can easily end fatally, or in injury. So, once again, the fashionable left is out of step and out of date, and their ideas, and their social experiments need to be rejected. WE DO NOT WANT FULL PRISONS; WE WANT EMPTY ONES We do not want full prisons, we want empty ones. To achieve this we have to make it nearly impossible to get away with a crime; this is the only way to create an effective deterrent. Harsh sentences, such as those in the 18th century, are no deterrent. If the majority of crime goes unpunished, as it did then, there is no respect for the law no matter how harsh the sentences. It would be the aim of this party to reduce the prison population to 15% of its present outrageous high; This can only be done by reducing the crime rate. Policing and reform of the law and court and police procedures will do much, but final and substantial reduction of our enormous crime rate can only be achieved when society as a whole changes its attitude to crime. THE END OF TEENAGE EXEMPTION FROM THE LAW the laughing has to stop We can no longer accept that society can be held hostage by violent criminals who are still only children, that adults should go in fear of their lives because we refuse to discipline children properly. Left wing doctrine, enshrined in the law, has made it impossible to deal effectively with violent and antisocial youths, who now know they are more or less free to do as they want and who laugh, quite understandably, at the forces of law and order. The laughing has to stop. The police and the courts have to be able to deal equally strongly with all lawbreakers, especially those who cause or threaten violence or destruction, no matter what their age. At street level this means removing some of the absurdities of the law which prevent the police from keeping order on the streets, with the amount of force necessary to achieve this. The police need to be free to do their job without fear of mischievous prosecution. We will look at existing legislation and remove recent laws which prevent the police from doing their jobs, including using the amount of physical force necessary to quickly and effectively restore order. Similar measures will be taken to protect teachers and parents and other adults who are called upon to either defend themselves or to restrain or punish children and youths. At the same time, brutality in prisons and young offenders institutions by inmates or wardens , will be actively looked for, and rooted out. We want to eradicate real brutality in all its forms, whether it is meted out by the authorities or by criminals of whatever age. If we are to remove the exemption of the young, including children , from the law and from prosecution and conviction, we have to have a mechanism to prevent children who are too young form going to prison where they are likely to fare even worse than on the streets. Therefore, there will have to be intervention in how sentences are carried out, once it has been passed. This means that offenders of any age can be charged ,convicted and sentenced as any one else, but that the execution of sentence will be mitigated by their age. One such option, which will help to force careless parents to control their children , and which will put the parents under the guidance of the authorities, is that, in addition to the reduced sentence given to the child or youth the child's parents or guardian will be put on probation for the same amount of time as the sentence lasts were it to be carried out, or as much as the sentence is reduced on account of the child's age. In other words, the adult sized sentence will be passed on to the parent in the form of probation. Other alternatives need to be made available to the authorities for children convicted of a crime . The aim of making conviction of children possible, is to put such children under the direct control of the authorities and to remove their ability to commit crime. The aim is not to put them in prison, but to protect the public, and to protect them from themselves. For this purpose a new system of re-educating young offenders needs to be introduced. For this, see the page on young Offenders SCHOOLS AND UPBRINGING; A RETURN TO DISCIPLINE, CONSIDERATION AND RESPECT FOR OTHERS By the thoughtless, not to say absurd operation of left wing politically correct doctrine , we have created a problem where there was not one before, in the area of children and discipline. The left wing middle classes have interfered in the way we bring up our children, then they complain of unruly youths. We believe that discipline is a normal and natural part of life for children, and that learning to behave respectfully towards adults ought to be an acknowledged requirement upon young people. This is something that has to be brought about by a change in peoples attitudes. We need to free parents to once again bring up their children to behave properly, by encouraging, not discouraging or discrediting, the notion of discipline. We will change the law to protect parents and teachers from mischievous prosecutions for assault. Our aim is to try to normalise the situation concerning physical restraint, which has become an absurd and harmful minefield due to government meddling; meddling in the natural right of parents to discipline their children and the commonsense needs of teachers, to protect themselves and other pupils,and to keep order. We believe that rudeness towards teachers, at the grotesque levels it has reached today, contributes to the insecurity felt by many teachers, and pupils, where a rule of thuggery and ignorance has been allowed to develop. This needs urgently to be reversed, so that teachers can feel safe and able to teach, and so that society can eradicate the high levels of aggression entering it from younger generations. The future is beginning to look grim. We need to face this problem with the utmost determination , if we are to give back to future generations a hope of a decent , safe and pleasant society for them to live in. Letting young people do whatever they, and especially the most brutal among them, want, is not the way, and this disastrous era has to come to an end . In schools as in the area of crime , there needs to be nothing less than a complete sea change. We would give full support, including altering the law, to the teachers and their need to establish discipline in schools. We will stamp out rudeness as we will stamp out its consequence, violence. THE DUTY OF CHILDREN AND THE DUTY OF PARENTS It hopefully goes without saying that children need discipline with love. There is no place in our society for cruelty and selfishness on the part of parents. But where there has been misplaced and largely ridiculous talk of children's rights, which is misleading and easily misunderstood by children, there needs to be instead talk of duty; parents' duty to set their children first, to love them and care for them, and to bring them up to take part constructively in society as adults; the duty of children to obey their parents , and obey the law, and to treat all other people with respect, politeness and consideration. These are standards which we need to reintroduce into the whole area of child-rearing, right from the very youngest ages, so that new generations can have a chance of enjoying a peaceful and well-ordered society where people are considerate towards one another. We are very far from that now. These are all words which the middle class left loathes; society however can no longer afford to allow their perversity to ruin our communities. THE NEED FOR A REBELLION IN THE YOUNG; A VISION FOR THE FUTURE It often happens that generations rebel against the values of previous generation which seem no longer desirable. Change doesn't always go in the same direction, it need not always be for the worse; Modern Life does not have to be like it is now - One day , there will be a generation which will reject the chaos and nastiness which characterises our present society, its meanness and harshness, its commonplace violence and cruelty; they will insist on a new society where decency and gentleness are the rule, where we treat each other with politeness and kindness. Today's youth are tomorrows middle aged; their values, or lack of them can also be rejected by a subsequent young generation. We have to start preparing the way for change. WE DON'T NEED NEW LAWS; WE NEED TO ENFORCE THE LAW Recently government has tried to fill the gap left by the abolition of morality by passing more laws, often duplicating the existing ones. We don't need new laws, we need fewer laws , but we need to enforce them , and we need to obey them. It is already against the law to be drunk and disorderly; and yet each weekend we see hundreds of drunken youths terrorising our town centres, openly baiting an undermanned police force. It is already against the law to drive dangerously, and yet so-called boy racers openly flout the law each night risking other peoples lives on public roads, and terrorising housing estates, and the police do nothing. We have to start enforcing the law as it stands, or we can expect the chaos we already endure to continue and get worse. So called Zero-tolerance isn't a new idea, its the natural state of affairs when you have an orderly and decent society where crime doesn't rule. It's what we had here once, and we should have it again. But no amount of law making or enforcement can replace the operation of the individual conscience, and this conscience has to acknowledge the existence of a shared morality. The basis of our morality has been eroded for the past decades but we need to have one;and it needs to be more than just the notion, prevalent today, that each one of us choses for himself what is right and wrong, for that is only another formula for selfish indulgence. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| The Working Class Party |
For decades Britain has drifted towards chaos. Millions
of lives are ruined by out of control crime and violence.
The drift has to be stopped, and reversed. Urgently.
of lives are ruined by out of control crime and violence.
The drift has to be stopped, and reversed. Urgently.