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Tory party conference: Conservatives call for public to fight crime
The public should do more to confront unruly youths and "not pass by on the other side", a leading member of David Cameron's team says today.
By Melissa Kite, Deputy Political Editor
Last Updated: 11:14PM BST 27 Sep 2008
Mr Grieve said the Tories could not put a 'policeman behind every lamp post' and that fighting rising crime would have to be a partnership Photo: PAUL GROVER
Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, called for a new partnership between public and police, with people taking action against crime when they could and not summoning police for "trivial" reasons.
In a hard-hitting interview, Mr Grieve said his party would increase police numbers by at least a thousand but that economic constraints meant that everyone had to play their part.
"We've got to bring the police and the public together for crime reduction," he said.
Mr Grieve said a culture of targets under Labour had led to police dealing with more minor crime in order to meet performance criteria. But that in turn was being exploited by the public, who were calling for police to attend incidents such as noise nuisance.
He said: "There is evidence that the police are being sent off to incidents which are of an absolutely trivial nature which could be solved by adults present and don't require the presence of police at all.
"We have the public saying on the one hand 'we can't get the police when we need them' and on the other hand because of the targets system it's quite rewarding for the police to go out and deal with a minor matter.
"We need to re-engage the public with the police, so that people understand what police can reasonably do and what they shouldn't be trying to rely on the police for and trying to deal with themselves."
Mr Grieve said the Tories could not put a "policeman behind every lamp post" and that fighting rising crime would have to be a partnership.
Referring to David Cameron's notorious "hug a hoodie" speech, he said: "Hugging a hoodie was actually a call to take an interest by people in what is going on in their patch in terms of young people misbehaving. That means sometimes controlling them, it may also mean giving them things to do, trying to divert them from their delinquency. It's about not passing by on the other side.
"There is no point seeing hoodies in a corner and saying 'nothing to do with me', I'm going to cross to the other side of the road. We've got to be think intelligently about how we stop young people often creating terror in their communities by some more pro-active engagement which includes the police and public and voluntary sector."
Asked whether he understood the fear of citizens that a youth might be carrying a knife, Mr Grieve said: "Any person who is trying to uphold the law or be sensible within their community has to make an evaluation of risk but the situation in which we now live where adults feel unable to go out into the street to tell 12-year-olds who are misbehaing to stop is in fact an abdication of all responsibility and the truth of the matter is that even with the rise of knife crime rates that we've got you are not likely to be stabbed."
Has Mr Grieve ever confronted a teenager on the streets? "Yes I have challenged kids misbehaving and they have stopped misbehaving." He added: "I do understand and I'm not critical of people being frightened." He promised that a Tory government would back citizens who take action.
"What we can do is at least provide them with some sense of confidence. If people feel they are being backed I think more will do the right thing."
Mr Grieve believes the public should stop overloading other emergency services too. "My wife was describing to me that she was in Kensington High Street this week and there was a fire in a rubbish bin which was smoking. All it needed was a bucket of water and the shop manager called the fire brigade."
It sounds like he is calling for a new community spirit on the part of the public. "I'm calling for people to realise that crime reduction involves everybody."
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