Following my recent comments about the need for the CPS and the Court Service to better support the police in the fight against crime, I was very interested in David Cameron's comments on this issue in his Conference speech this week:
"It is about a breakdown of all the things that are meant to keep us safe......a complete breakdown of responsibility. A breakdown of morality in the minds of those thugs a total absence of feeling or conscience. A breakdown in community where a neighbour is left to reach a pitch of utter misery. And a breakdown of our criminal justice system.
Every part of it, the police, the prosecution services, the prisons......is failing under the weight of big government targets and bureaucracy. The police aren’t on the streets because they’re busy complying with ten different inspection regimes. The police say the CPS isn’t charging people…because they have to hit targets to reduce the number of unsuccessful trials.
And the prisons aren’t rehabilitating offenders…because they’re focused on meeting thirty-three different performance indicators.
This all needs to change. I’m not going to stand here and promise you a country where nothing bad ever happens. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to deal with this problem of crime and disorder.
We cannot rebuild social responsibility from on high. But the least we can do the least we can do is pledge to all the people who are scared, who live their lives in fear and who can’t protect themselves, that a Conservative Government, with Chris Grayling, with Dominic Grieve, will reform the police, reform the courts, reform prisons. We will be there to protect you."
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