The Labour Party published its manifesto and manifesto costings for the 2019 General Election this afternoon. This is a summary of their proposed criminal justice policies:
Justice:
Champion a joined-up approach, fostering close working relationships between criminal justice agencies with education authorities, health services and others
Policing:
Enforce the laws protecting police and other emergency workers from violent assault
Re-establish neighbourhood policing and recruit more frontline officers
Work with Police and Crime Commissioners to reform police funding and share new resources fairly
Work with police forces to invest in a modern workforce to tackle the rise in violent crime and cybercrime
Retain local democratic accountability for police forces
Work to eliminate institutional biases against BAME communities
Ensure better police training on domestic abuse and offences arising from coercive control and historical abuses
Youth Justice:
Rebuild youth services and guarantee young people’s access to youth workers
Invest in a youth justice system where schools, local authorities, health authorities and youth services work together to divert young people from pathways towards crime
Prisons:
Restore total prison officer numbers to 2010 levels
Phase out lone working in prisons
Bring PFI prisons back in-house
Tackle the prison maintenance backlog and develop a long-term estate strategy
Alternatives to prison:
Set new standards for community sentences
Consider the evidence for effective alternatives and rehabilitation of prolific offenders
Introduce a presumption against prison sentences of six months or less for non-violent and non-sexual offences
Expand problem-solving courts
Probation:
Reunify probation and guarantee a publicly run, locally accountable probation service
Women in the CJS:
Plug the funding gap in the Female Offender Strategy
Invest in proven alternatives to custody, including women’s centres
Legal aid:
Restore all early legal aid advice, including for housing, social security, family and immigration cases
Recruit hundreds of new community lawyers
Promote public legal education and build an expanded network of law centres
Ensure legal aid for inquests into deaths in state custody and the preparation of judicial review cases
Courts:
Halt court closures and cuts to staff
Undertake a review of the courts reform programme
Facilitate a more representative judiciary while upholding its independence
Review funding for the Crown Prosecution Service
Equalities and Diversity:
Tackle the disproportionate levels of BAME children in custody
Review the youth custody estate
Strengthen youth courts
Build on the Lammy Review
Violence against women and girls:
Set new standards for tackling domestic and sexual abuse and violence
Appoint a Commissioner for Violence against Women and Girls
Establish an independent review into low rape prosecution rates
Establish a National Refuge Fund
Ensure financial stability for rape crisis centres
Reintroduce a Domestic Abuse Bill
Improve the safety of the family court system for domestic violence victims and prohibit their cross-examination by their abuser
Make misogyny and violence against women and girls hate crimes
Homelessness:
End rough sleeping within five years
Introduce a national plan driven by a prime minister-led taskforce
Expand and upgrade hostels
Make available 8,000 additional homes for people with a history of rough sleeping
Repeal the Vagrancy Act and amend antisocial behaviour legislation to stop the law being used against people because they are homeless
Drugs policy:
Establish a Royal Commission to develop a public health approach to substance misuse, focusing on harm reduction rather than criminalisation
Victims:
Introduce minimum legal standards of service for all victims of crime
Modern crime prevention:
Create a co-ordinating minister for cybersecurity and conduct regular reviews of cyber-readiness
Review the structures and roles of the National Crime Agency, to strengthen the response to all types of economic crime, including cybercrime and fraud
Create a new national strategy on cybercrime and fraud