It's time to fight crime

Tragically, that's all it was.

Any way you look at it, crime in our communities has got worse during the last 10 years.

Police are catching fewer criminals. Under Labour, detection rates have fallen and just a quarter of all crimes are solved. Meanwhile, prisons have got worse, because Gordon Brown wouldn't fund extra places.

So, while under Labour re-offending rates have gone up, prisons have to let criminals out early (see The Star's article, 'Burglar on run after home visit', September 27).

Labour's record on crime is their biggest broken promise.

What this country needs are new ideas and effective action. It's time we said enough is enough. The Conservative Party has the ideas and determination to make our streets safe.

Changes are needed across the board - in homes, in schools, in police forces, on the streets and in the wider society.

We need greater police presence, greater police freedom and real penalties against anti-social behaviour.

We need real school discipline, licensing that stops anti-social behaviour, swift, effective justice and prisons that work.

Ultimately, it is social change that will deliver a real and sustainable fall in crime... families and communities policing themselves and bringing young people up in a culture that is loving, fair and firm.

A lot of that is down to parents. But, the state and wider society are surrogate parents too, fixing incentives, sending messages, holding up standards of behaviour for the young to follow.

We all have responsibility - politicians, parents, neighbours, businesses - to make a society that is safe for our children. We must fight back against the gangs, guns and graffiti.

We must fight back against drugs, danger and disorder. Above all, we must fight back against the view that treats rising crime as inevitable, that treats social breakdown as an irreversible fact of modern life that despairs of ever making our streets safe and civilised places to be.

It's time to fight back, and the fight back starts here.

Spencer Pitfield, Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Penistone and Stocksbridge