With the local elections coming up, there are plenty of five-point plans fluttering around. Labour has just announced its own for breathing life back into British high streets, which is a good thing. The decline of town centres and high streets the length and breadth of the country is genuinely depressing. It’s hard to have pride in your community when all the nice shops have gone and what’s left are charity, gambling or pawn shops, or units just sitting empty.
Labour’s plans involve stamping out late payments from big clients, replacing business rates, rolling out banking hubs and revamping empty shops, pubs and community spaces. All these ideas are good ones, but we have to be honest that the state of our high streets and local communities are dependent on two bigger factors: the economy and crime.
There is no doubt that the decline in growth can be visibly felt on moribund high streets. But the issue of crime and antisocial behaviour – something Labour has also addressed in its plan – has a huge impact on how a local community feels and its confidence.
It’s very difficult to open a shop when shoplifting is out of control – up 30 per cent in a single year – and when your shop workers fear for their safety. Earlier this year, a study by the British Retail Consortium found that violence and abuse against shop workers rose by 50 per cent to 1,300 incidents a day. There are countless stories of shop workers being subject to aggressive and abusive behaviour and there is little support from the police.
The Government has just announced that assaulting a shop worker will be made a separate criminal offence in England and Wales despite previously telling campaigners that such a law was not needed and would not be effective. I guess life comes at you fast, especially when you’re in an election year and you need eye-catching announcements which don’t cost money.
And that’s the problem. We can all identify and observe things which are going wrong, but the reality is that providing solutions will take time, a multidiscipline approach and needs resources. A new law like this is all well and good, but how are you going to get these people arrested when there aren’t enough police officers, then get them through an already clogged courts system, and where will they be detained when there are not enough prison places? And what’s to stop them doing exactly the same thing when they come out because they have chaotic lives, mental health issues, addiction issues and are in destitution? It’s all very complicated but that doesn’t mean Labour shouldn’t make this a major test.
One thing which could make some difference is more dedicated local policing. There are many terrible things about austerity, but if there is one example which is testament to the futility of cutting for ideological reasons, it was the decision to axe so many police officers. Between 2010 and 2019, more than twenty thousand police officers were cut – which decimated community policing, key to tackling antisocial behaviour.
The Government will argue that after a big recruitment drive, as of April 2023, there were now around three and a half thousand more police officers than there were in 2010 before they cut. Here comes the big but… recruitment has not kept up with population growth.
The force has lost many experienced officers and a third of all police officers have fewer than five years’ experience, which is more than double the number six years ago. What on earth was the point of making all those cuts only to replace officers with less experienced people.
Even though many of us – especially women and those from black and Asian backgrounds – have deep reservations about the police, we still need a robust, well resourced, active force which is fit for purpose. Now perhaps more than ever.
Where I live in Lambeth, antisocial behaviour is off the scale. From muggings, shoplifting, aggressive begging, drug dealing, urination, defecation – it’s all going on. The community has come together to try and make things better. People know that the causes are complex and that there has to be a joined-up approach with public health, addiction and homelessness services but it’s also clear that people want to see a visible local police presence consisting of officers who know the area, local people and businesses and who stay in post for more than five minutes.
Labour has announced plans to put 13,000 more neighbourhood police and police community support officers back on the beat which is a thoroughly good aspiration. But if Labour wins power, Yvette Cooper as a future Home Secretary needs to make tackling antisocial behaviour an absolute priority.
That means giving the police the resources they need but also taking a keen interest in making sure they deliver on focused local policing (without operational interference). But she must work across Government with key Cabinet Ministers covering justice, health and local government departments to make sure that there is an overarching strategy to tackle antisocial behaviour. It needs a joined-up approach which brings together the holistic with enforcement.
The other element which is critical is the role that local councils play. It’s all well and good for Labour at a Cabinet level to talk tough on crime and safer neighbourhoods but Whitehall doesn’t execute much which happens on a community level – that falls to local councils. And if they aren’t following through on prioritising this then Labour will fail on a national level. If Labour wins power, there must be a real focus on making sure that Labour mayors and Labour councils also do the hard yards of implementing proper antisocial behaviour plans – and they must have the money to do so.
Many on the left will balk at Labour talking tough on antisocial behaviour as being “right wing” and “authoritarian”. But there is nothing progressive about people often who are really struggling coming home with their kids to find people doing drugs in their stairwell or on their front door.
You can care about poverty and care about antisocial behaviour – it is often the people who have the least, who suffer the most. Why should they have to accept living in horrible, frightening circumstances?
There is also an argument that antisocial behaviour is somehow not “that” serious. Well, tell that to a popular local shopkeeper in our community in Lambeth who was asked for money by an aggressive beggar as he was closing up. He politely said he didn’t have any, and was then beaten so badly with a metal bar, he has lost the sight in his left eye. He only survived because someone from the local mosque intervened.
We all deserve to live, work, socialise and raise our families in a neighbourhood which is safe, clean and pleasant. No-one should fear leaving their house, especially if they have kids. This is not a fancy luxury. This is the basic stuff of life. The Tories have completely abandoned Britain to a bleak normalisation of crime and antisocial behaviour. The party of law and order has given criminals and thugs the green light to fill their boots through its ideological zeal for austerity.
A future Labour government should vow to reverse this sense of crime wave Britain that we all feel. That would change the fabric and mood of this country. As someone once, said tough on crime and causes of crime. It’s a no brainer, but it must be delivered upon.