Civil Liberties & Crime

The government must stop treating citizens as suspects. 

Sadly, this government is the most authoritarian this country has ever seen, and indeed is the most authoritarian in modern-day Europe. Since coming to power, Labour has created well over 3,000 new offences, so many that the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Ken MacDonald, claimed not to be able to keep track of them all. At the same time, they have introduced widespread ASBOs, which essentially create new single-person crimes, and made fundamental changes to our rights, many of which date back to Magna Carta. A strong liberal voice in Parliament is essential to combat this.

ID cards and the Identity register

One new scheme the government insists on forcing on us all is ID cards, supported by a large centralised database. The rationale for these seems to change rapidly, hardly suggesting that they have been well thought through. It is claimed that the cards will be voluntary - except for foreign national workers, of whom there are many in Cambridge, especially in the Universities and Colleges - but this neglects the impact of the associated identity register, which British Citizens will automatically be entered into.

There are many reasons to oppose both of these. They are expensive - there are various estimates of their total cost, and the LSE estimates it will be around £10-20 billion. They are of limited benefit - it is hard to see exactly what benefits they would bring, especially in a voluntary form. And they are fundamentally illiberal, giving the State a large amount of extra power over its citizens.

Harry Wilcock, a Liberal activist in the 1950s, when refusing to provide the police with his ID card, said 'I am a Liberal; I am against that sort of thing.' We should be no less Liberal today.

The DNA database

I have written extensively about the DNA database.

Trial without jury; detention without charge

The legal system in this country is based on a series of principles of fairness, including the right to be tried by a jury of your peers, and to know what it is that you have been accused of. Both of these are threatened by this illiberal government. In addition, they have introduced measures to enable inquests to happen in secret, and secret evidence to be used in criminal proceedings. They have made extensive use of control orders preventing those accused of terrorism ever to defend themselves or lead a normal life. They have colluded in torture - 'extraordinary rendition' is a shame on all of us. They have clamped down on free protest and the right to demonstrate peacefully.

As Cambridge's MP, I would stand up against all of these measures. They are often defended in the name of fighting terrorism - but if we cede our freedoms, we have lost the fight.

Restorative justice and prisons

We have overcrowded jails - and there are proposals to build new superprisons to hold all the people who won't fit into the current ones. We know that for many crimes, jail sentences simply lead to high crime rates once the criminal is released from jail. We fail to educate and support criminals, and make it hard for them to re-enter normal life when they leave, heavily restricting their employment.

In contrast to our current approach, which focuses principally on retribution, we need an approach based on prevention. Research done by Prof Larry Sherman here in Cambridge shows that restorative justice, where offenders are confronted with their actions in the presence of the victims and others, is more effective than jail. In particular, it is cheaper, more effective at reducing re-offending, and preferred by victims. A detailed analysis is available here.

Evidence-based policing

Medicine used to be a very approximate art, and the rise of evidence-based medicine - the idea that one should test whether things work - has transformed healthcare. However, there is minimal use of evidence in terms of policing. Very little research is done into how effective various approaches and systems are. Are PCs more effective than PCSOs in deterring crime when on patrol? If so, by how much? How does that compare to the relative costs? How effective is CCTV at deterring violent crime? Is it more or less effective than spending the money on more police? Does Harriet Harman's approach of always arresting in domestic violence cases lead to more or less domestic violence?

The cost of doing such studies is very low, especially when compared to the costs of policing and the criminal justice system. David Blunkett, as Home Secretary, suppressed the results of such studies - he simply didn't care what they said. As the MP, I would press for the Police nationally to conduct and publicise such studies, so that we can have effective and efficient policing.