Police and Crime Commissioners – an opportunity for positive change by Shane Britton of Revolving Doors

Police and Crime Commissioners – an opportunity for positive change by Shane Britton of Revolving Doors

On 15 November, the first generation of Police and Crime Commissioners will be elected in 41 police force areas across England and Wales. The policy has been controversial, with mixed press coverage and opposition in Parliament from Labour. However, with less than 100 days to go before the elections it is time for those in the criminal justice sector to pause and consider what opportunities this radical change may provide.

As part of Revolving Door’s project to inform and influence PCC candidates, we recently published a background paper which looks in detail at the reform, and considers the implications for two groups that should be a priority for PCCs: young adults in contact with the criminal justice system, and offenders with multiple needs including poor mental health. Both groups are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and make considerable demands on police time. Young adults in particular are also among the most likely to be victims of crime.

As the report stresses, there is substantial potential for PCCs to work creatively to address the problems faced by these groups, and in doing so reduce crime and reoffending within their force area.

Firstly, as the Home Office have been keen to emphasise, PCCs have a broader remit than the police authorities they replace. They are responsible for community safety and crime reduction as well as police oversight; and with almost half a million proven repeat offences nationally in the year ending June 2010 they will need to set out a clear vision to reduce the high levels of reoffending by ‘revolving door’ offenders and young adults.

Secondly, the PCC will have a key leadership role in galvanising local partnerships. The police cannot reduce crime and reoffending alone, and PCCs will have substantial weight to pull together a range of local partners, from prisons and probation to the health and voluntary sectors that are vital to addressing the multiple needs of many repeat offenders.

Thirdly, PCCs will be important local commissioners, able to commission services which contribute to crime reduction in their area as well as pool funds and joint-commission with partners where there are overlapping priorities. Investment in early intervention and the commissioning of services that work collaboratively with the police to address offenders’ health and social care needs will provide savings for the police and other local agencies through reduced reoffending and enabling the police to focus on their core role. Building close collaborations with their local Health and Wellbeing Boards, councils, and the NHS Commissioning Board will be essential.

Of course, there remain a number of concerns. With shrinking funds and competing priorities, it remains to be seen what individual PCCs will prioritise in each local area. However, it is vital that agencies working with offenders recognise the potential for positive change that PCCs offer, and consider how they can make the reform work in their area.

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  • JENGbA

    By Gloria Morrison, Campaign Coordinator, JENGbAJoint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) is a grassroots campaign launched in 2010 in Liverpool by our Patron, the writer, Jimmy McGovern. We’re made up entirely of families and friends of prisoners maintaining innocence who have been convicted under the archaic doctrine of ‘joint enterprise’ also know as ‘common purpose’. We are currently supporting nearly 350 prisoners but that number rises weekly, mostly serving hugely disproportionate sentences from 16 to 42 years.Joint Enterprise means that anyone on the periphery of a crime can be linked by association to the main perpetrator(s) of the offence. In many cases, the evidential bar is so low that something as simple as a phone call is enough to give someone a mandatory life sentence. Children as young as 13 have been convicted of murder, even though they had no weapon, did not touch or even know the victim. More recently we are seeing cases where involvement in a ‘rap’ is used as evidence of ‘criminality’. The police and CPS are supposedly using this doctrine to target gangs but in reality, it is a lazy common law allowing sloppy policing that is scooping up as many people as possible with little or no evidence against them. It is particularly targeting BEM and working class communities, children with disabilities, vulnerable women and even people who do the right thing by giving evidence to the police believing they should tell the truth, who are then also charged under joint enterprise. In October 2011 JENGbA was invited to give oral evidence to the Justice Select Committee who held a brief Inquiry into the current application of the doctrine. The MP’s report (which is available on our website) demanded clarification of this complex principal. Kier Starmer, DPP, said he would issue immediate guidelines for Prosecutors. We still await those guidelines and note that many young people have been convicted of joint enterprise violent disorder for taking part in last Augusts riots. As a grassroots campaign we have survived entirely on donations. We are still kitchen(s) based campaigners up and down the country. We have regular meetings in London and Manchester. A JENGbA Kent, Bradford and Birmingham made up of families who have lost loved ones to the prison system under JE are also forming in those areas. We desperately need an office space as, with all pro-active campaigns, the more activism we create the more co-ordination becomes paramount. JENGbA sends a regular newsletter into the prisoners updating them of our progress and advising them how to campaign with us; writing to the DPP and MP’s. We are getting supporters from students, academics, legals and other campaigning groups. Paddy Hill (Birmingham 6 & MOJO) has said we will be the biggest miscarriage of justice campaign in this country ever and, because we have kept focused and gained a strong reputation, the prisoners, probation officers, youth workers and community groups are also spreading the word.For more information about our campaign please go to http://www.jointenterprise .co

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