Loomio
Mon 21 Mar 2016 12:53PM

Policing, Crime and Justice

ST Simon Thorpe Public Seen by 272

Policing, Crime and Justice policy

JTH

James T Holland Mon 21 Mar 2016 2:17PM

Notes from manifesto event

POLICING
Describing
Racism/violence
Accountability
Decriminalisation - sex work
Live feed body cameras
Reform of replacement of IPCC - address racism and violence in particular
Rehabilitation over retribution
Embed police into communities
Issues treated as problems
3rd body to hold police to account
Legal aid/more accessible justice system
Free legal advice

JTH

James T Holland Tue 22 Mar 2016 10:54AM

Poss key phrase - "who polices the police?" Answer - not the police themselves and not the IPCC.

Maybe we need a totally independent and democratic 'people’s police' (inc a new prosecution service) firstly to investigate the met, but possibly extending to the whole justice system, politicians, landlords, corporations, job centre and all other abuses of power - a first point of contact for all injustices, could eventually replace the police as we now know it

A presumption of Decriminalisation, restorative justice, rehabilitation, non custodial unless its absolutely impossible

ST

Simon Thorpe Mon 28 Mar 2016 7:11PM

So by far the main principle to come from the demands can be summarised, I think, as 'greater police accountability'.

And the second main principle would be Decriminalisation (of sex work and cannabis), which I think naturally extends to a general commitment to restorative justice.

I think the second one is a bit of a no brainer. The former is really important, both for its urgency, and its fidelity to the demands process. But is a much more complicated thing to come up with a policy for. 'Abolish the Met' came up several times, and is certainly eye-catching. But it requires an 'And...'. 'And replace with local borough police forces accountable to the community'? Or, an interesting demand we received was: 'place a civilian in every police station to monitor police'.

JTH

James T Holland Tue 29 Mar 2016 9:29AM

We dont need to say exactly what would replace the met, jyst that it would be democratically designed and operated and a few other core principles

I think true civilian oversight in whatever form could be our 'secondary less sexy but more achievable' policy