Labour vows to give victims power to decide punishments for antisocial behaviour

29 December 2022, 11:45

Labour has vowed to "prevent, punish and protect" under fresh plans to give victims of antisocial behaviour the power to decide punishments for perpetrators.

Labour declared itself the party of law and order - taking the title from the Conservatives - after confirming that it would update Tony Blair’s “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” mantra with a series of policies.

Shadow justice secretary Steve Reed said Labour intends to crack down on antisocial behaviour - a top concern among Brits.

Figures released from FOI requests found that, in the past three years alone, nearly two million reports of antisocial behaviour had gone unattended.

Meanwhile, community sentences have more than halved over the past decade, from 185,265 in 2011 to 72,021 in 2021.

Mr Reed said giving "a voice directly to victims" would help prevent people reoffending.

"Victims will be able to select the unpaid work that offenders carry out, so victims will be seeing justice done," he told The Times.

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Community sentences currently include clearing wasteland, decorating community centres and repairing churches.

Under Labour's new plans, victims will be able to sit on community payback boards to determine sentences.

Mr Reed added that the party had a three-point mantra that would shape its justice policy: “Prevent crime, punish criminals, protect victims”.

As for Mr Blair's previous “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” slogan, Mr Reed said he would update it by launching a review into how to focus on prevention in the criminal justice system.

It will look at models in other countries such as in New Zealand, where common traits in individuals’ childhood can be identified and linked to criminal behaviour later in life.

“Rather than just giving up on those people or letting them get out there and offend, I want to keep people safe and keep our community safe," Mr Reed said.

"You can do that by tackling the effects of the trauma that leads them to offending.

"By doing it, you make them much less likely to offend again.

“So if you really want to keep people safe, we’ve got to update Labour’s old slogan: tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime and make it fit for the future.

"This whole science around trauma in early years didn’t exist in the early 1990s when Tony Blair came up with that phrase.

"So I want to update it for today.”

However, a Conservative source told the paper: "It will take more than this to persuade voters that the party who voted against more police funding and tougher sentences for rapists and child killers can be trusted with our justice system."