Violent crime has doubled under Labour, but police officers still spend more time on paperwork than on patrol. The Government’s approach has clearly failed. They have failed to respond to local concerns about crime. They have failed to place greater trust in the professional judgment of police officers. And their obsessive, centralising approach to policing has tied the police up in paperwork and targets.
The Conservative Party is committed to reforming the police.
- We will cut police paperwork, starting with the ‘stop and account’ and the ‘stop and search’ forms
- We will slash targets and the army of auditors that go with them
- We will strengthen powers of stop and search to enable officers to respond decisively to knife, gun and drug crimes
- We will reverse the health and safety rules that wrap officers in cotton wool and put the public at risk
- We will introduce directly-elected police commissioners to make police forces directly accountable to their local communities
We cannot tackle crime unless we also address the causes of crime - including family breakdown, drug abuse and binge drinking. But fighting crime starts with getting more police officers back on to our streets. Only the Conservatives have the vision and policies to fight back against crime.
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