We talk constantly of the Ministry of Defence and making sure our armed services receive all the funding they require. We send our boys off all over the world to keep the peace and to ensure democracy, but that phrase has two sides to it.
We can no longer ensure the defence of our realm with the might of our army and our services alone, extremism as an idea is nothing new to the British public but its causalities and forms have changed since the days of terror in London.
To defend this sovereign sceptered isle and its mother of all democracies we must begin to assess the protection of its citizens in their homes and in their communities. To do this we need new policies and a return to some of our older values, it has become all too clear over the last few days that morality and discipline have all but vanished from British society.
The Government wishes to talk of these riots as an affront to British society and as totally unacceptable, these things I would never dispute as causality should for the main part remain an irrelevance in regards criminality.
We have heard a lot about policing and maintain order in this country by “consent”. This has been the British way since Robert Peel (which is why the police have the nickname 'Bobbies')created the police force in 1829 and it should always be thus. How many countries can claim to have an unarmed police force for example?
But consent only works when the public respect, and to a certain extent, fear the law. For generations we have lived in a country where if a parent or for that matter child was stopped by a police officer they felt a certain amount of disgrace. I am not saying we should fear the police but that we should be forced to respect them.
We live in a society where the powers and judgment calls of the average police officer have all but been removed in favour of other less direct methods. We must take this opportunity to re-empower our police officers with new legislation on low level crime and far more freedom for the police to deal with low level criminals.
A new low level crime act consisting of: on the spot anti-social behaviour fines, on the spot compulsory local community service orders, low level truancy fines, legal protection for police men against nonsense human rights legislation that interferes with the process of policing, active naming and the shaming of low level criminals, new powers allowing police officers to apprehend youths and take actions outside of the court room, giving magistrates courts the ability to suspend benefits going to low level criminals including EMA (or its replacement), a know their name policy for local police men.
All of this combined with new powers for PCSO’s to create an effective and functional two tier policing system and a return to imposing and substantiated police uniforms. Returning discipline and morality to the streets is not an easy task but it must be and remain a priority for the government. Although what I am suggesting gives the police an unprecedented amount of power and the ability to stand as judge and jury against low level criminality, it will restore the ever lessening balance between the criminal and the police.
Restoring order to the streets with tougher legislation and police empowerment is one thing but it will not solve the problem on its own. We need to also consider education and deprivation in our communities. After fifteen years of a labour government we still have a very small uptake of apprenticeships when we compare them against when we had technical collages. I do not for one minute suggest that the riots in London can be explained as “protests against a lack of education and jobs”, but what I will say is we live in a country where we are currently failing to provide the right jobs and the right education for those who either can’t or are unable to pursue academic subjects.
In a country where even today our service sectors prefer a candidate with a degree what hope do those without one stand of finding employment, we must provide those who do not or cannot gain academic qualifications with alternative skills or risk consigning them to a social underclass and in doing so create a forgotten education.
Mr Gove talks of Academies and of extending the scheme further. Yes they work but the scheme needs to be pushed further still. Academies are having a fantastic effect on education levels in deprived areas but when one in three students arrive there unable to communicate properly let alone read or write, it may be time to accept that we need an education system that concentrates both on academic leadership and providing the basic skills to ensure those who can’t or won’t pursue it are not forgotten and left to fester at the very bottom of the pile.
Education and legislation will not work on their own. We must see reform of our social services as well, the government must again empower our social workers to take action without the threat of negative consequences.
It must ensure that case workers are given the time and the training to make real and long lasting differences to families in need. Most of all we must simplify the system. Put an end to multi-agency involvement and get back to a situation where a single case worker is empowered to channel benefits, assistance, government held information and any and all support necessary to any one they deem in need. A single lead case worker with real power and the ability to make judgment calls will insure the process of helping those families.
With this three pronged approach we can not only tackle the underlying causes once and for all but also ensure that in the cases where positive action is ineffective the full force of the law becomes not only a resource but also a functioning deterrent.
This is how we stop extreme behaviour on our streets not just with force and more power to the police but with a combined effort to both provide hope and a working future for those that have been left behind.
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