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11.45 pmMr. Graham Riddick (Colne Valley) : I welcome the debate, because my constituents have had enough of the incidence of crime, in Britain as a whole and in the constituency. What is more, so have I. Hardly a day goes by without a shocking headline in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner telling us that someone has been mugged, robbed or raped or, in one or two cases, murdered. So this is a timely debate. My constituents are not worried about violent crime alone. They are also worried about having their houses or cars broken into or their cars stolen. So we must not simply hit the violent criminal : we must ensure that all forms of crime are tackled.
As Opposition Members have rightly said, we should consider some of the underlying causes of the increase in crime. We know that society has changed enormously in the past 20 or 30 years. Masud Hoghugi, the director of the Aycliffe centre for children, has said many interesting things about crime. He has said :
"This is pay-back time for the permissive society."
That is right. We all know that, in the past 20 or 30 years, a dependency culture has been fostered by the liberal establishment and, indeed, by Opposition Members. We have seen how the authority of the Church of England has been steadily eroded so that there is now a moral vacuum.
More and more children do not have the disciplining figure of a father, because about 30 per cent. of all births take place outside marriage. In some inner-city areas, the figure is 50 per cent. I wish that the Archbishop of York would tackle some of the difficult moral issues instead of taking the easy route of attacking the Government. [Interruption.] Attacking the Government is dead easy everyone does that--but talking about morality is much more difficult.
We see violence on our television screens, on videos and in cinemas. I take this opportunity to commend Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is having second thoughts about appearing in a sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs", because he is worried about the effect of violence on cinema screens. We all know that drugs are a significant contributory factor to crime.
I do not doubt that poverty and unemployment exacerbate crime. However, to suggest that they are behind much of today's crime is far too easy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day) said, the same problems existed in the 1930s, yet we did not have today's high levels of crime, because there was far greater morality and the family unit was far stronger.
Once we have examined the causes of crime, there comes a time when we have to stop understanding those causes and take action to protect the public, provide deterrents and impose punishment for wrongdoing. Many of the young people who get into trouble are cautioned in the first instance. That is entirely appropriate, but a caution should be given only for the first and perhaps the second instance but no more than that.
Corporal punishment would be extremely appropriate for many young people. I know that the liberal establishment would scoff at such an idea, but outside this House in my constituency and in the real world, I find that the vast majority of people agree with me. They have an instinctive belief and knowledge that corporal punishment is an appropriate form of discipline for young people. Of course, it is unpleasant and it is slightly humiliating for
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them, but one hopes that it will ensure that they never wish to experience it again. Corporal punishment could also teach some young people how unpleasant violence is. I wonder whether they realise that when they are mugging people in the street.I support community sentences as a form of punishment and believe that we should make parents appear before courts with their children. However, some persistent young offenders need to be locked up simply to protect society, and I welcome the statement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary earlier this week about secure units.
In reality, recent legislation has made it more difficult for courts to take appropriately tough action in certain cases. It seems to me that the Home Office has two objectives : first, to keep as many people out of prison as possible ; secondly, to ensure that no innocent person goes to prison. Those are laudatory objectives, but I fear that, in attempting to fulfil them, we have made it all the more difficult for the police to secure convictions.
When the prison population figures were recently released and showed a significant reduction, the Home Office saw it as a sign of success, but I saw it as a sign of failure. While crime is increasing, we need to take action to stop it.
I acknowledge that we have been tough over violent and sexual crimes, and we have also been tough on middle-class business men driving their cars down the motorway. A means-related fines system is an abomination, and we must get rid of it as soon as possible. The law needs to be seen to be fair, and such a system clearly is not fair.
I referred earlier to my local newspaper. Its headlines do not help a climate of law and order : for example,
"Worst offender given smallest fine",
because of the means-related fines system ; and
" Law will not let us deal with teenage thugs' says police chief".
The latter expresses the feelings of frustration felt by many police officers, and some justices of the peace have resigned in disgust at recent legislation.
As we know, the Criminal Justice Act 1991 stops courts taking previous convictions into account, which is wrong. In the majority of cases, courts cannot do so, contrary to what the Minister of State said in answer to my intervention.
A senior police officer from the West Yorkshire force proved to me that a court cannot impose a security requirement on juveniles aged 15,
"unless the offender is charged with a violent, sexual offence or an offence where an adult is punishable with 14 years imprisonment. Such an offence precludes burglary from shop premises and thefts of motor vehicles. The effect of this is that an offender who steals a car, ramraids into a shop, and injures a passer-by cannot be remanded in custody by the court."
That is wrong and the law needs to be changed if it is having that effect.
I totally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) about the burden of administration on too many police officers.
Mr. Mike O'Brien rose --
Mr. Riddick : I do not have time to give way.
Some officers take hours to transcribe interviews with suspects, which is absolute nonsense. We have to do something about it.
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In the short time left to me, I make a plea to my hon. Friend the Minister to abolish the right to silence. It helps the criminal, and it is not a problem for someone who has nothing to hide. Innocent people will be happy to tell the police where they were and what they were doing at a particular time. If that law is good enough in Northern Ireland, it should be good enough on the mainland. Juries and judges should be allowed to draw a certain inference from a suspect's refusal to respond to police questions.I have little confidence in the royal commission, which is staffed by five lawyers, one sociologist, one psychiatrist, one industrialist and one policeman. I hope that, even if the commission does not come out against the right to silence, my hon. Friend will ignore it in that respect.
I have no intention of listening to Opposition Members, who are Johnny-come -latelies on this issue. When they were last in power, they had a terrible record.
11.55 am
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : The Minister concluded his speech by saying that he considered that the Government policies that he had described were effective. Almost every speech from the Conservative Benches has reflected a deep and sharp criticism of their effectiveness. If the debate achieves nothing else, I hope that the Minister's complacency will be severely shaken. However, in drawing his attention to speeches by Conservative Members, I do not wish to give any sign of support for some of the remedies to our crime problems that they mentioned.
The Minister should be in no doubt that there is widespread anxiety and anger in many communities about increasing crime levels and the attack on the security of society that they represent. That has been manifested by such dangerous new developments as the growth of vigilante movements, which have given rise to new crimes. Some vigilantes have appeared before the courts. In January, in the High Court in Cardiff, we heard how a gang of residents from a housing estate near Tonypandy had beaten to death a man whom they suspected of burglary. In December, a court in Newcastle heard how a business man stabbed a suspected car vandal in an effort to stem a crime wave. Last July, 100 residents on a Scottish housing estate formed a human barricade to stop youths from causing disturbances. In Wales, one village mounted nightly road blocks and checked every car that wanted to pass through.
Those examples do not represent a society that is "at ease with itself", to quote the Prime Minister, but a society in which law and order does not prevail and in which, despite the £6.5 billion that the Minister acknowledged was spent on different aspects of the criminal justice system for which his Department has responsibility, citizens do not consider that they are getting value for money. The reality is that the Minister's measures of achievement and effectiveness were encapsulated in a speech which listed measures that were brought before the House to stick plaster on a number of isolated criminal offences. I have carried out a little modest research on how much work has been done under the six Home Secretaries who have occupied the Government Bench since the Conservatives came to office. It is not necessarily entirely accurate, but it gives some impression of what has happened.
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Since 1979, 62 pieces of legislation relating to new offences, the courts and the powers and organisation of the police have been passed. The Government have not attempted to implement the Law Commission's proposal that we should seek to codify our criminal law and to bring some order to its chaotic statute book, but they have introduced at least 16 new offences. Those offences concern crossbows, drug trafficking, firearms, forgery, indecent display, supply of intoxicating substances, malicious communications, nuclear materials, female circumcision, the taking of hostages, joy riding, dangerous drugs, computer misuse and war crimes. That is just a selection and I have no doubt that there are others.Lest Conservative Members think that by dreaming up new offences we shall get to the bottom of the problem of crime, let them cast their minds back on what we have been about in this place in the past decade under a Conservative Administration.
A number of Conservative Members have tried to suggest another new treatment of the crime of offending on bail. It is not as simple as they have made out. A Home Office research paper by Patricia Morgan states :
"To bring about the twin benefits of minimising offending on bail while not increasing the remand population unnecessarily, remands in custody should be reserved for those who would commit offences if granted bail. But identifying this group is no easy task. The problem is that, even in the high-risk group, such as those between the ages of 17 and 20, who have been charged with burglary or mobile offences, fewer persons offend on bail than do not offend on bail. Better ways of selecting within these groups are needed."
That seems like common sense, and a warning that there is no simple answer to dealing with such problems by yet another little Bill produced at the drop of a hat when a nasty headline appears in newspapers and the Home Secretary wants to pretend that he is doing something about it.
The reality, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have testified, is that crime figures have gone up. However they are measured, even by the crime survey of the Government, which shows a substantially slower rate of increase than does the rate of increase in recorded offences, but none the less shows at least a 50 per cent. increase since the Government took office, the figures are appalling. They in no way reflect the hardship, anxiety and misery that individual crimes cause in the lives of our citizens.
In the brief time that has been left to me as Liberal Democrat spokesman--I regret that it is so short--I want to address one issue on which I believe that the Government's response to the challenge has been far from adequate : crime prevention, which the debate, at least in part, is about.
The Minister says that £6.5 billion is spent on the criminal justice system. He did not answer my question about how many millions are spent on crime prevention, but he probably knows the answer. Mr. Jack rose --
Mr. Maclennan : No. The hon. Gentleman must allow me not to give way, because of the time factor. Because it is so important, however, perhaps it would be worth hearing what he has to say--so, yes, do tell us just what that figure is.
Mr. Jack : Every year, £166 million is spent.
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Mr. Maclennan : So £166 million is set aside from £6.5 billion--the disproportion is absolutely striking ; and that sum is being reduced still further. The schemes that have been seen to be effective are not being backed up by successors.
The reality is that the best hope for crime reduction flows from the reduction of opportunities to commit crime, by targeting crime prevention measures. I am talking about the kind of thing that the Minister had the effrontery to laugh at. He read out some passages from the Labour party manifesto which dealt with the practical problem of reducing the likelihood of burglaries in inner-city areas and criticised them.
The Minister thought that the provision of lighting was rather amusing. If one has to live in a dark corner, in a Victorian dwelling, lighting is extremely important. If the Government smirked and sniggered less and paid more attention to such improvements, they might have a better record to boast about to the House than they have today.
Crime prevention offers the best hope of reducing our crime figures to something more tolerable in a civilised society. That means ensuring the co -operation of local authorities with the police and businesses, to find ways in which to target the protection of the most vulnerable communities. It can be done, it has been done and it will be done better if best practice is built upon by the Home Office and extended to the communities, as the Liberal Democrats are doing through their local authorities.
12.5 pm
Mr. David Evans (Welwyn Hatfield) : The most fundamental duty of any Government is defence, whether that be defending citizens from antagonists abroad or unruly elements at home. Indeed, the very essence of a free and constitutional Government is that they keep lawlessness at bay and produce security. I hope that the Minister meant what he said about listening to today's debate.
Many of my constituents feel far from secure. They are either the victims of crime or feel constantly threatened by the wave of violence and theft that is engulfing this country. They are not the people who inhabit inner- city slums, the so-called "no-go" areas of urban deprivation and violence. They live in towns and villages, but they do not feel secure unless their houses are wired up with an elaborate alarm system. They do not go away for the weekend because they are worried about being burgled. That can only suggest one thing : there has been a failure in the rule of law. The House should face up to the fact that there is a crisis of confidence in the country. When people no longer feel safe in their homes it is time to act ; time to shift the balance of power away from the criminals. I welcomed the Home Secretary's announcement this week on juvenile offenders. For the first time, those hooligans will be locked up and, as far as I am concerned, they can throw away the key. Will the Minister assure me, however, that those institutions will not be holiday camps, but prison camps where thugs can learn the meaning of right and wrong? I hope that the Minister will note that it is important that they are run not by failed social workers, who are associated with that lot on the Opposition Benches, but by sergeant-majors.
The Home Secretary has rightly said that recorded crime has risen constantly since the second world war, in times of boom and bust. That tells me that the tack that we
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have followed so far has failed and that urgent and forceful measures are required to stop the sickening spiral into lawlessness. Tragically, my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary continues to offer the sort of sugar-coated schemes that have been tried and failed. He advocates, for instance, a wide range of crime prevention initiatives to encourage all sectors of the community to work with the police to prevent crime. However, I believe that we should be concentrating not on the law-abiding sections of society, in the hope that they will form neighbourhood watch schemes, good as they are, but on real punishments that will stop people even contemplating crime or make those who have offended wish that they never had.In international affairs, we have learnt to appreciate the values of effective deterrents and the use of force. It was the threat of nuclear weapons that prevented the communist bloc from transgressing the iron curtain, not the niceties of diplomacy. Despite the views of the CND crackpots on the Opposition Benches, it has always been apparent that the only language that some people understand is that of force. Unfortunately, when it comes to domestic affairs, we seem to forget that basic fact of life. We are now paying the price and the penalty for that.
Although I recognise that the root of crime must be tackled, we still need to act now to deal with the problems that are staring us right in the face. The most important distinguishing characteristic of crime is that it confers on the state the legal right to punish the offender.
Sadly, all too often, attention is focused on the rights of the criminal. I would give the criminal rights--the right to be birched, to be flogged, to be castrated and to be given a damn good hiding. Some people say that corporal punishment undermines an individual's dignity--what about the dignity of the victim? Surely, if the alarming rise in crime tells us anything, it is that many in our society believe that crime pays. Therefore, we must ensure that the punishment is of such a nature that it makes even the most hardened offender think again.
At present, prison--even though it costs the taxpayer £20,000 per prisoner per year--is regarded as a soft option. Giving 20 lashes per prisoner per year may be more appropriate. Too often, the authorities treat criminals with kid gloves. The Strangeways riot was a case in point. It was sickening to see those men sticking two fingers up to the society that they had defaced. The Government and the police should have given them 10 minutes to get off the roof before using marksmen to pick them off one by one. That would have sent clear signal to all the miscreants in our society.
The state must ultimately reserve the right to take a citizen's life. Some argue that capital punishment is never justified as it violates a human's right to life but without the rope, there is no way effectively to distinguish crimes such as theft from crimes such as cold-blooded murder. Criminals should be in no doubt that when they contemplate a murder or participate in acts such as armed robbery, which so often tragically result in death, their own lives are on the line.
I shall describe some of the origins and causes of crime. The problems that we face today result from the breakdown of discipline, whether in the home, at school or the world at large. Too many parents in this country regard their children as an unfortunate by-product of sex. They pay little attention to their upbringing and exhibit negligible control. As a result, the housing estates are
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littered with children roaming the streets after dark, and engaging in petty vandalism and theft. Why? Because their parents could not give a damn about where their children are or what they are up to. It is no good lecturing such people on the need to show more affection to their kids, making them pay fines or even docking their child benefit entitlement--although that would concentrate their mind. The parents of persistent offenders should be put behind bars while their children are temporarily looked after by people who exhibit some responsibility. It is nearly always left to schools to pick up the pieces. It is ludicrous that, when faced with a classroom of hooligans, a teacher cannot resort to corporal punishment or--as in my day--hurl a blackboard duster at the head of an obnoxious student. The result is that the days have gone when you could hear a pin drop in the classroom and we now have a generation that are out of control. What sort of message goes out to the public when a rapist is told by a judge to give the victim £500 for a holiday so that all will be well? The rapist should have his goolies removed.My friends know my honest view of Europe, but one practice from the Community that I would grasp with open arms is national service. Young people--both men and women--can learn the benefits of discipline, teamwork and deference to authority. The term should be 18 months. People say that we cannot afford it, but I say that we cannot afford not to have it. People may talk about a peace dividend, but events around the world show us that we must be on our guard more than ever before. We cannot forget the schemes that incorporate community work--what young people really need to be told is to "get some in". As well as being concerned about the breakdown of discipline and respect for authority in our society, I am also deeply worried about the extent of television and cinema violence. In a society where many children lack guidance, the violence depicted in the visual media has a disturbing effect. Where else do youngsters get the idea of maiming toddlers? Where do youths get the idea that wielding a gun or knife is glamorous? Too often, violence is depicted without a moral standpoint or, worse still, the homicidal maniac is idolised. Children must be protected from such garbage. Again, that involves the participation of parents, who too often prefer to be down at the pub.
What of the Labour party's law and order policy? What a joke it is. The malaise in our society that has contributed to the rise of lawlessness has largely been as a result of the ideology of the Labour party. That party has paid more attention to rehabilitating or excusing the offender than punishing him. The Labour party is pathetic.
Since 1979, the Labour party has fought against every major piece of legislation designed to combat crime. Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), go up and down the country moralising and talking hypocritical nonsense. They opposed the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which strengthened and clarified police powers in criminal investigations, and the Public Order Act 1986, which provides the police with stronger powers to deal with street disorder.
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12.15 pmMs. Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) : I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans). My constituents live on the front line of the war against crime, and my constituents and I do not need lectures from Conservative Members about how frightening and demoralising it is to live in an area of high crime rates. My constituents and I want people accused of crime to be pursued just as ferociously as Conservative Members say that they do. We want such people-- including the police, when they are accused of crime--to be pursued with the full rigour of the law and, where appropriate, prosecuted.
On Tuesday the Home Secretary made a statement about the Government's plans for responding to juvenile crime. On the same day four people--Rennie Kingsley, Ida Oderinde, Dennis Tulloch and Everard Brown--had their convictions quashed by the Court of Appeal, headed by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, because the evidence in their cases from police officers at Stoke Newington police station was no longer reliable. Rennie Kingsley had already served two months of a four-month prison sentence. Ida Oderinde had served 13 months of a four-year prison sentence. Dennis Tulloch had served one year of a four-year sentence. Everard Brown was sentenced for six years in 1991. All those people had had drugs planted on them by police officers, four were accused of possession, and three with the intent to supply.
All the police officers involved are on suspension and under investigation because of those allegations, and a host of others. As long ago as April 1991, Scotland Yard set up Operation Jackpot to investigate allegations of corruption at Stoke Newington police station. They were not idle allegations, or only one or two allegations, but a series of serious allegations that has taken nearly three years to investigate. The investigation is not yet complete. An interim report was issued on 20 November 1991--the full report is still not available. But according to the information released to date, there is sufficient evidence to substantiate the allegations. The operation was expected to end last summer, but was prolonged.
A number of officers have been accused of planting drugs, theft and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. To date, 12 officers have been named : PC Mark Carroll has been mentioned in 10 cases ; PC Terence Chitty has been mentioned in 12 cases ; PC Bruce Galbraith has been mentioned in five cases ; DC Bernard Gillan has been mentioned in six cases ; DC Paul Goscombe has been mentioned in five cases ; PC Christopher Hart has been mentioned in 12 cases ; DS Graham Leblond has been mentioned in one case ; DC Roy Lewandowski has been mentioned in four cases ; DC Barry Lyons has been mentioned in eight cases ; DC Peter McCulloch has been mentioned in seven cases ; DC Ronald Palumbo has been mentioned in 14 cases ; DS Robert Watton has been mentioned in four cases.
The most frightening aspect of the investigations is the number of police officers who have been accused of participating in organised crime. It has been alleged that drugs discovered in raids have been returned to the community by bent policemen who have set up individuals to sell drugs on their behalf in return for a cut of the profits.
Eight of the officers have been transferred from Stoke Newington. One, DC Roy Lewandowski, was convicted of
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theft and is in prison. PC Bruce Galbraith, DC Barry Lyons and DC Ronald Palumbo have been suspended. The number of officers implicated suggests that this is not a case of one or two bad apples in the barrel. It is difficult to believe that senior officers were not aware of what was going on or that they did not condone it. Because these allegations are so serious and because a serious investigation has been going on for so long, I call on the Home Secretary to waive the excuse of jurisdiction and to look into the matter.When one raises these issues with the local police they get understandably defensive. The police in areas such as Stoke Newington do not have an easy task ; it is easy for them to slip into a siege mentality. But it is wrong of them to imply, as they consistently do when they talk on or off the record about this subject, that the allegations are all invented by bent officers and criminal members of the public. The Government have a responsibility to take the situation at Stoke Newington seriously and I ask them to make the following commitments : first, to make Detective Superintendent Russell's report available to the Royal Commission on criminal justice as soon as it is ready. Secondly, I ask them to introduce a directive on police investigations to ensure that they do not take longer than necessary. I need not remind the Minister of the case of ex parte Cherry. In that case, police officers escaped prosecution because the investigations had taken so long.
I want figures, division by division, of the numbers of police officers who have been the subject of complaints. How many officers have been cautioned, suspended or convicted in relation to these complaints? I want the Government to allow the Crown prosecution service to take a more active role by assuming responsibility for investigating allegations of police misconduct. The system of the police investigating themselves commands no confidence among the public. It is time the police were subjected to genuinely independent external investigations.
Finally, I ask the Home Secretary to consider reviewing the police complaints system and to replace the current criminal standard of proof required with the civil standard of proof, based on the balance of probabilities. I have written to the Home Secretary about these matters, but unfortunately not yet had a reply.
It is not easy to raise matters of police wrongdoing or corruption in the House. I am sure that my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench would far rather I did not. It is easy for people to accuse us of being anti- police or of undermining confidence in the police. I am the first to say that there are dedicated police officers at Stoke Newington police station, working in difficult circumstances, but the fact is that over the past decade the police have undermined confidence in themselves in cases such as the Birmingham Six and the Tottenham Three. There cannot be effective action against crime in our inner cities unless the police command the absolute support of the community.
We have an appalling drug problem in Stoke Newington. My constituents and I want a real war against drugs there. We want the drug dealers taken off the streets. When I leave my home in the summer and push my baby along in the pushchair down to Dalston junction, I pass crack dealers in the street. We want the clubs where drug
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deals are struck to be closed down ; likewise the flats on estates where drugs are retailed. We want these crack dens cleaned up ; we want a war against drugs in Hackney. It is a matter of great concern to me that the Metropolitan police still have no overall strategy on drugs.If we mention serious allegations against the police, Conservative Members are quick to say that we are anti-police, but unless these allegations are cleared up and the police regain the confidence of the community, they will be unable to act against the serious problems in our midst. The allegations against the police in Stoke Newington are the most serious allegations of police corruption for many years. They have hung like a cloud over Stoke Newington police station. As a resident and representative of the area, I want a fresh start there. I want the Home Secretary to answer my letter and the points that I have made. I want to know which policemen are guilty and which are not. We want the Stoke Newington police station to be cleaned up and we want a fresh start, with genuine co-operation between police and community, so that we can attack the drug dealers, the drug abuse and the drug peddling that are poisoning our community.
12.24 pm
Mr. Michael Shersby (Uxbridge) : I must declare two interests. First, I am parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales. Secondly, I have just become president of the Uxbridge victim support scheme.
The Minister has asked for the views of hon. Members on the operation of sections 18 and 29 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991. In the 10 minutes available to me, I will try to give mine.
First, there is the section of the 1991 Act that deals with previous offences. As the House knows, critics of that section have complained that it prevents sentencing authorities from taking an offender's previous criminal record into account. I am advised that the Act merely reflects established legal practice. The Court of Appeal has consistently ruled that previous convictions do not of themselves make the offence more serious, and it is said to be quite wrong that an offender should be punished twice for the same offence.
I also understand that section 29(2) of the Act makes it clear that where aggravating factors are disclosed by the circumstances of previous offences, a court may take them into account. For instance, if an offender commits a series of six burglaries by night, the fact that they took place by night would not be an aggravating factor. But if in each case the victim were an elderly widow, there would be an aggravating factor--consistent selection of vulnerable victims. I believe that the Court of Appeal's guidance has made it clear that courts should continue to receive information on previous convictions. The current dissatisfaction, it is said, stems from procedures that existed before the Act was introduced. That is the position taken by those who defend this section of the 1991 Act. I should like to tell the House about the concern being expressed to me by some members of the Police Federation, and how it sees section 29(2) affecting sentences imposed by the courts in respect of both adult and juvenile offenders. I will preface my remarks by saying that many police officers see the 1991 Act as having, as one of its principal aims, the lowering of the prison population.
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Let me offer the House some illustrations of recent cases. I shall not give the names of those who were convicted or the names of the courts.Case No. 1 concerns a man who had a number of convictions for assault. He was charged with fracturing a man's jaw and perforating his eardrum and with assaulting two females with a sledgehammer. He was convicted and sentenced to a community service order of 80 hours, a probation order for 12 months and a conditional discharge for 12 months for unlawful wounding and assaults occasioning actual bodily harm.
In case No. 2 a person with serious convictions for drug offences, including convictions on five counts for supplying heroin for which he received three years' imprisonment, was arrested in possession of a substantial quantity of cannabis which he admitted he would supply to other persons. He was fined just £250. On the day following his arrest, he was arrested for a public order offence at a rave party. It appears likely that the cannabis was destined for that event. The third case involves two men who were known to be a professional team of burglars. They were arrested following four house burglaries. Both had numerous previous convictions and one had just been released from a four-year term of imprisonment for burglary offences. They received a 75-hour community service order.
Case No. 4 is of a man arrested for burglary offences, handling stolen property and taking a conveyance. He jumped bail and when he was finally caught and convicted he was placed on probation for one year. He had eight previous convictions.
My final example is of a man arrested for shoplifting who had no fewer than 67 previous convictions. The magistrate ordered him to pay £17.43 and no other penalty whatever was imposed. I shall not take up the House's time by giving more examples. The cases that I have quoted show that there is little deterrent in the law as it stands and that the judicial system is failing to protect the public by putting burglars where they belong--in prison.
Section 18 of the Criminal Justice Act deals with unit fines. It came into effect in October last year and introduced to magistrates courts a new system of income-related fines. Those fines have two components. Magistrates assess the gravity of the offence and assign to it the appropriate number of units. Some of the fines are lower than those that would be imposed on a person with a fixed penalty ticket for offences of speeding or parking on a yellow line. Where is the justice, where is the deterrent?
The unit fine system also seems open to abuse and is seen by many people as unfair and unjust. It is thought that many defendants do not tell the truth about their earnings. What formal checks are carried out on the earnings of a defendant? I understand that there are few such checks.
I shall now deal with a matter of concern to the Police Federation and the Police Superintendents' Association and all those who are interested in the ability of the police to defend themselves against the shocking number of serious assaults which they are suffering while going about their duty protecting us, the citizens. As the House knows, I have consistently campaigned for the introduction of the side-handled baton, which the police want because it has a longer reach. Its handle enables a police officer to defend himself or herself from assault by a person who may, for example, be wielding an
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iron bar. It can be swivelled on the handle, and that is very useful for knocking a knife or perhaps a gun from the hand of an assailant.I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary announced this week in answer to a question from me that he has authorised trials in the Metropolitan police of an expandable baton and a telescopic baton. The expandable one extends at a flick of the wrist while a telescopic baton may be compared rather easily with a telescopic umbrella. In effect, the telescopic baton is illegal. Those batons do not have a handle and the Home Secretary has said that he wants to examine their wounding potential. He also thinks that police officers should not carry a baton external to their uniforms, but that they should be carried covertly in a truncheon pocket. The reason for that is that my right hon. and learned Friend is anxious not to change the traditional image of the British bobby, the officer whom a small child, a juvenile or an old lady may approach without fear.
My right hon. and learned Friend does not want to see police officers looking like a walking armoury. Perhaps he has in mind the police officers that we sometimes see in television films of life in the United States, with jangling handcuffs, pistols and long batons being worn on their uniforms. I accept all that, but I do not believe that the British would regard police officers as walking armouries if they had a side-handled baton worn externally to their uniform. Such batons are used in many countries in the continent of Europe and I believe that they should be introduced in the United Kingdom. 12.35 pm
Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith) : Having spent a great deal of my life working with criminals, including extremely serious offenders, I find it frustrating to have to confine my remarks to 10 minutes. It is not possible to take up all the arguments in such a short time. I am in a position to remind the Minister that some years ago I warned the Government--this was before the first prison riot--that we would have riots in our prisons. I warned the Government also that we would have increasing crime in the United Kingdom, especially violent crime. I suggest to the Minister--I think that he is beginning to listen, not least because of the impact that the debate on crime is having on the Conservative party, which is beginning to be frightened by it--that he reads the speeches that I made in the House in 1985 and 1986. He will find that I spent much of my time talking about crime prevention. I cannot go through them all now.
I merely say that if we continue with the policies that have been implemented over recent years, which undermine the structure of both the family and the community, crime--especially violent crime--will continue to increase. I have said many times that we can deal with crime by physical and structural methods, such as using the concierge system in high-rise flats and taking families with young children out of those flats. The children have to stay inside or they play outside unsupervised, which means that they can get into crime or become the victims of crime.
I have drawn attention to the need for stronger locks on doors and windows. Various keep-safe organisations have helped. Unfortunately, the Minister mocked the importance of incorporating crime prevention in local
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authorities' planning policies. The key to good crime prevention is close liaison between a local authority and the police. That is why police committees and local authorities are crucial, and why planning policy, as well as housing, education and youth facilities, is so important. There is a combination of critical factors, and it is in that area that the Government have failed most dramatically. I have some hope that they are beginning to reverse their policies. The Government are talking about millions of pounds being spent on new lock-up facilities, when they spend only £2 million or £3 million on alcohol or drug abuse prevention measures. Not long ago, the film "Grass Arena" was shown on television. It was about one of my clients, with whom I worked for many years. He is the first vagrant alcoholic so far as I know to have written a book about his circumstances. I do not think that I could have got that man off alcohol abuse in the present circumstances, because of the limited facilities that are available.If someone is on drugs or alcohol, he will have to make many attempts to come off it. It cannot be done in one go. In the 1960s and 1970s, I had the advantage of the availability of various systems through which I could put people. They would fail and break down, as it were, but it was possible to strive and ultimately to succeed. The talk about tougher sentences is nonsense if we are not catching offenders, and the majority of offenders do not get caught. We cannot flog, shoot or hang offenders if we do not catch them. When juveniles are caught, it is important that punishment quickly follows the crime. A parent will not delay punishing a child for several weeks. In other words, punishment quickly follows the "offence". That cannot be replicated in a legal system, but the closer we get to doing that the more effective will be the punishment. The greater the length of time that elapses before punishment is imposed, the more irrelevant it seems to the young person concerned.
The past few days have seen--not least because of the tragic circumstances of the Jamie Bulger case--an outbreak of moral concern about family structure and morality. If I had spent all my time as a probation officer and in other capacities giving moral lectures to my clients, I would have been totally and utterly ineffective. That is not to say that one's clientele should not be told that their actions were wrong--they should, but moral lectures do not work.
If a child is brought up in a family whose problems are so severe that the messages he or she receives are at best confused and at worst often destructive, or if the child is a member of a peer group that is engaged in criminal or deliquent behaviour, any message given by a teacher, probation officer or social worker will have only a marginal effect. That is why there is much greater emphasis now on working more closely and intensively with offenders.
If the Government want to be more effective, they must devote much more money in other Departments on the first five years of a child's life. Nursery and other provision is critical. It is no use expecting probation officers and others to pick up the pieces when a person reaches 15, 20 or 30 years of age. Nor is it any use--fortunately, only two Conservative Members were stupid enough to do this--
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