Tackling crime

Crime is a pollutant and an expensive one. Everyday we see examples of how even minor crime, such as graffiti or vandalism, affects our environment.

We all want more police on the streets, rather than behind their desks, to deal with these matters. However, many of us do not realise the constraints placed on police resources such as the immense amount of paperwork they have to fill in, the rules and regulations they have to abide by e.g. health and safety law, and the lack of local holding cells for apprehended miscreants.

I have had some direct experience of what the police must go through. In June 2007 I spent a Friday night, out on the beat, with Twickenham police and saw, first hand, how drunkenness and anti-social behaviour blights our high streets and terrifies innocent passers-by.

We are lucky that gang and knife crime has not yet taken a foothold in Twickenham. However, I have always believed that preventative action against violent crime is far more effective in the long-term than simply throwing resource at it once it has already taken a grip on our local communities.

Working with the national Conservatives, and the office of the Mayor of London, I aim to do something about this locally.

I support the following actions to both alleviate current crime levels and prevent any expansion of violent crime in Twickenham:

• Levels of policing and local resourcing;
• Reducing police bureaucracy, including getting rid of “stop forms” and reforming other police paperwork;
• The impact of drink and drugs;
• Zero tolerance of minor crime to prevent it spiralling into more serious crime;
• Supporting tougher sentencing of violent criminals;
• Making parents more accountable for the conduct of their children;
• Giving headteachers back the power to discipline their pupils with less fear of legal retribution.

The Conservatives, under Mayor Boris Johnson, are already making a difference through abolishing the consumption of alcohol on the Tube, introducing knife scanners at Tube and railway stations, and supporting police raids that have seen thousands of illegal weapons confiscated from individuals in the last few weeks.
 

Deborah Thomas

Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Twickenham

Contact me
Tel: 020 8878 7866
Fax: 020 8878 5054
Mobile: 07590 642038

You can write to me at:

372 Upper Richmond Road West
East Sheen, London, SW14 7JU or send an e-mail to:

deborah@deborah4twickenham.com

Please contact me directly for details of campaigning, social events, other political activities or if you would like to become more involved.

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