Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Robert Halfon: Robert Halfon: Returning Law & Order to Harlow Returning Law & Order to Harlow Roydon, Nazeing & Sheering Roydon, Nazeing & Sheering
Robert Halfon
Chapter 1 Policing
Neighbourhood Policing The only way to defeat rising crime is to have police officers in our neighbourhoods on a long term basis, working with local people, the Council, youth leaders, schools, shopkeepers, businesses, and community and residents associations. Officers must be highly trained for this work, and be prepared to remain for the long term to gain intimate knowledge of the communities they police, building trust and lasting relationships. I want such officers held in high regard within the police as well as outside and rewarded for the sacrifices such dedication may mean. I will campaign for additional payments, presently spread across the whole force, to be concentrated on real Community Beat Officers. Rural Policing Closure of rural beat offices like Nazeing and Roydon has left our villages relying on officers attending from Harlow or Epping to locations in which they may be unfamiliar. I will campaign vigorously for these to be re-opened and the return of village constables. A Mobile Beat Office does not replace the valuable contribution resident officers made to their communities as well as to law enforcement.
Conservatives will bring back proper beat policing by proper police officers
I will be a frequent visitor to Harlow Police and will back their every effort on behalf of Harlow and our villages
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Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) The Police Federation say PCSOs are not the way forward for policing. There are only 4,500 across the country. Harlow has five. They are poorly trained, poorly equipped and have too few powers to be an effective replacement for proper police. Labour say they are only there to help regular officers, yet they plan to increase their numbers to 25,000. The truth is that Labour will do away with our traditional bobbies altogether and replace them with policing on the cheap. PCSOs do not take an oath to the Crown so they can never be truly impartial, they are not subject to the same strict discipline laws as regular officers and could go on strike. They have no career structure, so have little incentive to remain for the long term. Government funding for PCSOs is to be reduced before disappearing in three years. That means their whole cost will fall on our Council Tax. I will oppose further funding for PCSOs. This should be spent on recruiting regular officers. Special Constabulary Specials are volunteers who help in all aspects of policing, as well as the high-visibility work PCSOs are supposed to do. They are well trained and have the same powers and equipment as regular officers. People from many walks of life bring valuable skills and experience to our police by volunteering at least 16 hours of their time a month. At present they receive no pay for this. Since New Labour came to power the number of Essex Specials has almost halved, from 631 to 371. Nationally, the figures are worse, we have lost 8,837 Specials around 2 million policing hours a year. Conservatives will help restore the number of Specials by paying them, in a similar way to the Territorial Army, for the hours they train and work, with a variable annual bounty for those contributing more than the minimum.
Conservatives will restore numbers by paying them like the Territorial Army
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Who runs the Police? The police have consistently complained they are subjected to too much central control from this government, given too little control over spending their own money, set too many government targets and have too much form filling, bureaucracy and red tape, which keeps officers in police stations. They are subject to far too much political correctness. They must be allowed to get on with the job of fighting crime without constantly having to look over their shoulders to see whether they are offending this or that minority interest. Crime affects everyone and there must be no no go areas. To help with these issues and ensure senior officers are accountable locally, Conservatives will introduce elected, rather than selected, police authorities, and every community like Harlow will have an elected person or committee, to whom the local police commander will account for the type of policing and its effectiveness locally. This will not take away Chief Constables sole responsibility for operational issues, but it does mean that local commanders must set local priorities in consultation with local people to deliver the policing communities want.
Too much Labour red tape Too much Political Correctness Conservatives will make local police accountable to local people
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Hard drugs must remain illegal or under strict medical control. I am not in favour of prescribing hard drugs. This failed in the past and would do nothing to stop the illegal street trade. Again, the practicalities are enormous. Instead, under Conservatives there will be an additional 25,000 places on drug rehabilitation programmes for young people who get into trouble, for whom the message will be get into rehab and get off drugs or go to prison. Early indications are that where such schemes exist, they have a dramatic effect in lowering crime. This will be paid out of the extra 18.6 billion in the first two years that a Conservative Government will put into the NHS but, as drug dependency and crime decrease, I will press for the savings to be used to expand the scheme until we have enough rehabilitation for everyone who wants to come off drugs. Young People getting off the Conveyor Belt to Crime Conservatives will build on the good proposals in The Children Act (2004) to ensure all agencies presently dealing with children and young people work together, pooling funding where necessary, to identify where help is needed to prevent children starting on the conveyor belt to crime. Ensuring they go to school, they are safe in and out of home, and intervening with positive action when things look like going wrong. Unfortunately, too many parents today feel powerless to do this alone, so I will support the introduction of mentoring for problem families and long-term rehabilitation for youngsters who cant reform on their own. Our children are the future of our communities and our nation. We owe it to them to help parents stop the decline of our civil society, set children standards they can live up to, make the right start in life and stick to it.
Zero Tolerance for Harlow with 926 more police officers in Essex
Agreements with the people of Harlow to deliver better Police & Council service
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Travellers Everyone is entitled to live their lives as they want, but there have to be limits on this freedom where lifestyle interferes with others. It is a fact that on too many occasions travellers impose an unfair burden on communities by camping on parkland, intimidating residents, damaging playing pitches, leaving commercial and human waste behind. Conservatives propose tough new laws to curb abuse of Human Rights law, stop abuse of planning rules, allow councils to seize caravans, encourage police and councils to make full use of existing powers and give local people a say in locating traveller sites. Harlow fulfils all its obligations in providing traveller sites and I will work to ensure other local authorities do the same, so there is no need for us to be the target for unlawful camping while travellers look for legal sites elsewhere.
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Neighbourhood Watch I believe volunteer organisations like Neighbourhood Watch are the backbone of local Law & Order. Without the consent and co-operation of the communities they police, our police can not do their job, so I will do all I can to strengthen and encourage Neighbourhood Watch, ensure they have proper facilities and communication, and are fully supported by an adequate police response to their needs. Speed Cameras We all have a duty to drive responsibly and with care for other road users, but Conservatives feel Labour is at war with motorists, who are an easy target for taxation. In 1997 John Prescott said he would provide an integrated transport system, but our roads have become a nightmare of potholes, cones, gridlocks, road humps and traffic calming. Along with this has come an ever-growing number of speed cameras, while police forces have cut back on traffic police. Motorists pay over 40,000,000,000 (40 billion) a year in tax, thats almost as much as the NHS spends each year. Only a fraction of that is returned in improved roads. Motorists deserve better. Road accidents kill over 3,000 people each year, a number that is increasing. In addition to the terrible human cost every loss brings, each death costs society about 1 million. Reducing this number by a third would put back 1 billion every year. I believe technology can play an important part in reducing death and injury on our roads. However, some research suggests speed cameras may even be making things worse. I believe every site has to be justified before we install a speed camera, and that every penny of the fines should go back into road safety for the area where the camera is installed not just more cameras.
Reducing road casualties is very important, but we must restrict speed cameras to where they are necessary
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These Home Office charts show people in Harlow suffer above average crime and violence Only 1 in 3 reported crimes is solved. If your home is broken into there is only a 1 in 9 chance of the burglar being caught
*Harlow crime levels blue national levels orange recorded crime. (Home Office statistics)
Detection rates have not improved under Labour Detection rates: Essex Police 1998/99 29% 2003/4 28% Sample Detections 2003/4 Violence Burglary Robbery 69% 12% 21%
Conservatives will give Essex 926 extra Police to improve these figures
In 2003/4 there were 144,512 offences recorded in Essex. (Home Office statistics)
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You cant trust Labour on crime. You cant believe a word they say any more
Conservatives will restore pride in Britains police and I will make Harlow a Decent Place to Live
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What people think The British Crime Survey (BCS) samples only people over 16 years. It does not ask about Most people say crime is all crime, only those which ordinary people usually encounter. In 2004, two in three people getting worse under Labour (66%) thought crime nationally was worse and one in three (33%) said crime was A lot worse. When asked about crime where they lived, over half the people surveyed (52%) said local crime had got worse and one in every five (20%) said local crime had got A lot worse. The 2004 BCS found people recalled fewer actual crimes than police records suggest, but Police figures bear this out recent changes in the way crime is recorded has improved police procedure and we feel this is now a more reliable indicator than the BCS, apparently borne out by the perceived levels of crime shown above. The survey found 4 out of 10 victims (42%) were dissatisfied with the way police handled their cases. Most people think prisoners should serve their full sentence; no remission for good behaviour and extra time for bad. Labour thinks judges shouldnt send offenders to prison if prisons are crowded, and they want fines based on offenders income, not the seriousness of the crime. They are out of touch with what people think. Conservatives will build an additional 20,000 prison places by 2008 paid for by savings we have identified in Home Office administration.