Law and Order

Rising Crime is an issue of serious concern to the vulnerable sections of our society. Older people should not be frightened to leave their home because of violence on the streets. The party wants tougher sentences for muggers, thugs, burglars, tricksters and vandals who target more senior citizens.

We find it quite dispiriting the way successive governments have shied away from an ever increasing problem, preferring to brush the problem under the carpet and massage crime figures so as to avoid living up to their responsibility.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense must realize the longer you leave a problem the more draconican a solution you must adopt to cure it. Like with most cancers, if caught at an early stage you stand more of a chance for a cure than if you ignore the problem.

You do not have to be a rocket scientist to realize that the current policy of containment as opposed to dealing with crime is a burgeoning stress on our Police force who are now relatively undermanned and under–resourced to deal with the escalating problem. The people who deal with the sharp end of our society such as medical, police, fire and other similar personnel must receive our total backing.

It would be easy to be glib in how to handle a complex problem but you have to start somewhere and resolve individual problems head on and in no particular order. However, the problems with law and order must be tackled and we would envisage that some lack of police manpower could be made up from specific personnel from the armed forces. We must reduce the need for police in certain areas to free them up for more useful work. We would therefore propose bringing to a halt binge drinking and anti social behaviour, especially during the night by imposing a drinks ban after 11pm. Nightclubs and discos can remain open by serving soft drinks or coffee. Any misdemeanour in this direction can be by immediate closure by the police with a court order. We would also propose the introduction of special forces for traffic, community, and public events.

We have to impose severe punishments on anyone allied to the drugs trade. Equally anyone who abuses, in any sense of the word, children, elderly or the weak and indefensible. Educating the young at an early stage by both parents and teachers to teach the morals of our society so they can distinguish between right and wrong. Unfortunately, somehow you must return to the education of manners, discipline, and etiquette. Parents must be made legally responsible for their children's adverse actions and must bear a proportion of the blame and punishment. If parents are incapable of raising children then clearly they should not have them in the first place.

In view of the lack of prison space, which must be increased irrespective of cost, one alternative short term measure would to conscript those committing lesser crimes into the armed forces and perhaps dependent on their crime placing them overseas with the army in less desirable areas.

Computer crime must be curtailed as it is already out of control, allied with Banking and credit card fraud it has the potential to seriously undermine not only the growth of a country but to cause instability. These type of crimes cause untold financial misery for individuals and families, and let us not forget that a large proportion of the elderly cannot understand these type of crimes.