24 April 2021
The Green Party has pledged to invest in local services as part of a shift away from the government’s current criminal justice system and towards community-based policing in order to reduce the amount of crime.
The news comes ahead of elections across the UK in May. Sian Berry pledged as part of her London Mayor campaign that she will revamp policing methods, including the stopping of stop and search, if she was elected at next month’s elections. [1]
Zack Polanski, Green Party London Assembly candidate, said:
“Police resources are wasted on the pursuit of small-scale cannabis offenders which does little to deter culprits from reoffending. County Durham diverted their police officers away from this mindset, which has corresponded with an overall reduction in recorded possession offences across the country, [2] and the government must consider adopting more such approaches to bring about material change.
“Punishing people for the sake of it is ineffective. Instead, our society needs to deal with more underlying issues for why criminal offences happen in our cities, such as unemployment. An overhaul of the justice system centered on Green Party policies would see the creation of local, community-based policing and an investment in education. The use of draconian sentencing, CCTV cameras and stop and search policing must be changed.
“Restorative justice programmes, which have been proven to be better at preventing re-offending than short-term sentences, would also be invested in to the benefit of our society. Every citizen has a right to feel safe when they are walking down the street.”
Notes, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/sian-berry-london-mayor-cannabis-stop-search-b1794303.html, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/26/cannabis-possession-offences-fall-75pc-decade-police-accused/, For more information or to arrange an interview please contact: press@greenparty.org.uk / 0203 691 9401
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