Our plan
This is the second in a short series of posts summarising the manifesto pledges on criminal justice made by the main political parties. Today I look at the commitments in the Conservatives’ manifesto. Their section on criminal justice is entitled “Our plan for safer streets and justice for victims of crime”.
Priorities
The Conservatives first set out a number of priority areas; most of which focus specifically on policing:
- Give every neighbourhood an additional police officer by recruiting 8,000 more police officers.
- Back the police, by giving officers new powers and tools to catch criminals, including technology like facial recognition and powers
to seize knives and track down stolen property. - Restore public trust in policing by licensing police officers for specialist roles and ensuring officers are appropriately vetted during their service.
- Foster greater collaboration between the National Crime Agency and Counter Terrorism Policing.
- Roll-out hotspot policing to tackle anti-social behaviour.
The other areas highlighted in the introduction are:
- New “Martyn’s Law” to ensure premises are better prepared for terrorist
attacks. - Toughen up community sentencing by increasing the use of community payback and electronic tagging.
- Combat fraud.
The remainder of the pledges are split into three sections, summarised below.
Tackling violence against women and girls
The Conservatives pledge to:
- Create new offences for spiking, the creation of sexualised deepfake images and taking intimate images without consent.
- Support victims of domestic abuse.
- Introduce a 25 year prison term for domestic murders and review homicide sentencing.
- Introduce a new investigatory model for rape for police forces and prosecutors and pre-recorded cross-examination for victims in all Crown courts.
A justice system that delivers for victims and the public
This section includes commitments to:
- Make more whole life orders
- Toughen sentencing for knife crime, grooming gangs and assaults against retail workers.
- “Stand firmly behind” the doctrine of joint enterprise.
- Build four new prisons.
- Remove more Foreign National Offenders.
- Invest in rehabilitative services such as drug treatment, education and employment.
- Design a redress scheme for the victims of child sexual abuse in institutional settings.
- Restrict sex offenders from changing their names.
- Cut the court backlog by more sitting days, investing in court maintenance and match funding 100 criminal law pupillages.
Counter extremism and protect our streets
The Conservatives pledge to:
- Ban face coverings, pyrotechnics and climbing on war memorials to curb disruptive protests.
- Strengthen police powers to prevent protests or marches that pose a risk of serious disorder and ban protests outside schools.
- Place a duty on the police and prosecutors to publish regular guidance on the statements, chants or symbols, for example, the swastika or the term ‘jihad’, that in the context of political protest may constitute an offence.
- A commitment to tackle both antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred.
You can read the full manifesto here.
