MPs call for community-based police and prison funding

17 Jul 09
Responsibility for funding prisons and policing should be devolved to local areas, experts and MPs said today
By Vivienne Russell

20 July 2009

Responsibility for funding prisons and policing should be devolved to local areas, experts and MPs said today.

The recommendation was one of a number of conclusions reached by the All-Party Parliamentary Local Government Group, after a six-month long inquiry into the criminal justice system. The group’s report said a radical shift of powers and funding was needed to transform a ‘woefully inadequate’ criminal justice system.

Primary justice called for a local ‘safety and justice’ budget to fund local prisons and neighbourhood policing as well as commission other services.

The criminal justice system should be underpinned by the principle that offenders should be helped to get work and learn new skills, the report said. The business and voluntary sectors should be encouraged to open up employment opportunities for ex-offenders.

The inquiry was led by a panel of criminal justice experts and cross-party MPs and assisted by the Local Government Information Unit think-tank.

Labour MP Clive Betts, chair of the inquiry, said: ‘Communities need to be given far greater responsibilities for dealing with offenders. A community-based system of prisons and crime prevention would empower local people and encourage genuinely innovative and targeted solutions to crime that cannot be achieved by civil servants in Whitehall.’

LGIU chief executive Andy Sawford added: ‘The criminal justice system needs to act more like local public services: from the competitive commissioning of services to greater local freedom over spending priorities and giving local people a feeling of control over the way society deals with offenders and ex-prisoners.’

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