Leo McKinstry
authority, and systematically abandoned its central duty of protecting the public.
That dereliction can be seen in the changing role of the police. Once the reassuring symbol of gentle British civilisation, the constable on the beat has all but disappeared, partly as a result of cuts over the past eight years, but more because of warped values where crime deterrence by street patrols is no longer viewed as a priority. The police are no longer tackling thugs and thieves. In the past decade, despite rising crime, the number of arrests has halved, while the total of charges and summonses has dropped by 26 per cent since 2015.
Even when serious offenders are arrested and prosecuted, they are too often treated with excessive leniency. This week it was revealed that 40 per cent of criminals caught more than once in possession of a knife are spared jail, in direct contravention of the law passed in 2015 which required judges to imprison repeat offenders. In practice, the courts are openly flouting the “two strikes and out” rule, which turns out to be nothing more than an empty political gesture designed to give the illusion of toughness.
But that sort of softness now exists throughout the system, highlighted in the excessive use of meaningless cautions and misnamed “community” sentences. One recent study by the independent think tank Civitas showed that just a third of those convicted of violent crimes are given custodial sentences. Incredibly, even half of those with 11 to 14 convictions avoid prison. It is little wonder, then, that so many brutes think they can act with impunity.
At the heart of the State’s enfeeblement is the progressive ideology which holds that crime is a symptom of social problems like unemployment or limited welfare, so offenders are really victims who deserve support rather than punishment.
We hear such excuse-making all the time. Desperate to shirk his responsibilities for order in the capital, the useless Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan continually indulges in that kind of rhetoric. In a BBC interview this week, he wailed that “we’ve got to give young people constructive things to do, investing in youth centres, youth workers and after school clubs”, as if murderous butchery is just a response to juvenile boredom.
SUCH an outlook reaches its moral nadir in the fashionable argument, promoted by Khan, that street violence should be treated as a public health question rather than a criminal justice problem. This stance represents cowardice on an epic scale.
Yes, violence is a health issue, but only when the victim is lying in a hospital or a mortuary because of the actions of a knife-wielding or gun-toting thug. It is absurd to pretend that crime is a sort of infectious disease. That only lets criminals off the hook, which is why Left-wingers such as Khan have embraced this theory.
We should be moving in precisely the opposite direction. In place of the current institutionalised weakness, the authorities should be far more robust. That means putting police back on the streets, enforcing the law and locking up offenders. The progressives squeal that “prison does not work” but that is nonsense.
When knife-wielders and gangsters are behind bars, the public is safer.
‘Police no longer tackle thugs and thieves’