This September sees the commencement of work of the Liberal Democrat Crime & Criminal Justice Working Group. This group that is being jointly chaired by Geoff Payne (Barrister) and Cllr. Duwayne Brooks (Lewisham Council) will consider:

• Cutting crime and building communities that feel safe.
• Developing policing which communities and individuals can have faith in, responsive to local needs without becoming subject to political interference.
• The scope for early interventions to divert at risk young people from drifting into a life of crime.
• The challenges posed by the growth of cybercrime.
• Support for individuals and communities that find themselves victims of crime and anti-social behaviour.
• How to strengthen civil liberties via reforms to criminal law and the criminal justice system.
• Whether some criminal offences are no longer needed.
• A court system that delivers fair and transparent sentencing, offers fair access to justice, and is driven to innovate and improve at all levels.
• A long term sustainable settlement for legal aid.
• Focusing the Criminal Justice System as a whole on reducing reoffending and rehabilitating those who have committed offences.
• The scope for further development of the use of robust community sentences and restorative justice.
• The potential for decentralisation and local government involvement in our criminal justice system.
• The over-representation of minority groups in prison and the issues around imprisonment of women.

If anyone is interested in influencing the future policies of the Liberal Democrat Party and thereby the Coalition please feel free to contact me via this site or email uduwerage<@> gmail.com.

Yours sincerely

Ruwan Uduwerage-Perera
Cllr Victoria Ward

NB: Involvement in this consultation in no way indicates any liking or any other involvement or association with the Liberal Democrat Party.

Sort of like our non-political PCCs are tasked to do. Any of them invited to join the group.?

You and your colleagues are wet blankets who will try and do everything you can destroy the right and civil liberties of those of us in this country who work hard to preserve a proud and just society. Thankfully anything you and your over zealous power mad council colleagues come up with will most likely be ignored by your peers, like most of the ideas that come through Lib Dem grass roots groups. And even they did, your piss pants little party props up the Tories, because it has no morals and standing of its own. In your role as sidekick to the government, you get the little titbits of policy decision to keep you interested that the Tories (your masters) allow you to have and that's it. So thanks for the offer but no thanks if I want to influence something properly, it won't be through your little committee.

Interesting. Oftentimes the people with the most to say about criminal justice are the Hot Fuzz demographic and I'm sure it's not their intention but I do think they makes matters worse. I'd hope that there'd be more bleeding-heart liberals like me making suggestions to the group, but I worry that these things become monopolized by the crime-phobic reactionaries. Don't get me wrong, fear of crime is a terrible thing and maybe worse than the crime itself, but it does cloud the debate.


You noted my suggestion previously, but I'll make it again: It can sometimes be difficult for the ordinary citizen to get their human rights if they're not supported by a major organisation like Liberty. Defending your own human rights in court is practically impossible so I think there is some mileage in making all human rights offences criminal and making the police/CPS responsible for detection/prosecution. Or else make it easier for the regular schmo to defend their rights in court themselves - so a small-claims tract for HR rather than the high court, and a cap on costs so the public authority can't bully a win by threatening financial ruin if you lose. Maybe the state should always bear their own costs if the case passes a merit threshold.


We need to have an informed debate about the criminalization of drugs. The criminalization of drug use creates many problems of its own. I can't help feeling that a decriminalization of drug use and a regulation of supply would be a better approach, along with better support for addiction.


I think there also needs to be an honest discussion about reintroducing the death penalty.


You're sh1tting me, right? I'd have been sent to the Gulag if the local worthies (meaning no offence) had their way.

Why? I thought its abolition was brought about by honest discussion?

Not entirely. There's public support for the death penalty, always has been, it's just that it's maybe not very civilised and, with the best intentions, our politicians have erred on the civilised side. I think we need to be honest about the social need for punishment and acknowledge that executing the vilest offenders may best serve society, even if it offends our more delicate sensibilities. Having a standing army that's prepared to go and kill the professional soldiers of a foreign country to achieve our national political ambitions seems to me far more repugnant that humanely ending the life of some murderer or rapist.

There is public support for the death penalty, but it is far from obvious that it is a significant majority. It can also be debated whether a murderer is completely at fault for their actions (as with any person's actions), notwithstanding there is little evidence that the death penalty actually works (other than killing people). I'd also question that there can be anything humane about killing someone except to end their misery, or to prevent a similar crime.


This is a logical fallacy and has nothing to do with whether bringing back the death penalty has any merit.

I agree, there should be an honest and open debate about the death penalty, they only problem is, as far as I can see, when one does it only reinforces the argument for its continued abolition.

• The over-representation of minority groups in prison and the issues around imprisonment of women.

Ummm, assuming that, in general the justice system is fair then logically the only reason that 'minority groups' are over represented is that they commit the crime (or just get caught more frequently...!)

And what issues over imprisonment of women?

What with Coombe Gibbet nearby?

It's an opportunity to suspend those assumptions then and take a detailed look at the underlying reasons.

These are some of the issues around the imprisonment of women, though there may be others.

I'm not going to argue the case for the death penalty in this thread, but if I've convinced you that there should be an honest and open debate about it then that's all I wanted to do. It's a subject that attracts more then the usual amount of humbug, and personally I'm reconciled to it being nothing more than vengeance and serving no value as a deterrent, and I think those issues should be examined.

Statistics tell you little more than the next questions to ask.
Strikes me women, as 50% (ish) of the population are distinctly under there due numbers, given the calla for equality in everything....

I think you're misunderstanding the equality agenda. It's a call for equality of opportunity, not a statement of equivalence. Statistics will show you that men and women are not the same in their criminality, and that in itself may tell a story of indirect discrimination, but there is also the issue that, for the same crime, women would appear to be treated more harshly then men, and that may possibly have its roots in the discriminatory social attitudes towards women.