Battleground Yorkshire: Crime requires short-term fixes and long-term reform

Researchers at the CSJ looked at London as a snapshot to see if crime had improved, after a lot of money had been dedicated to helping matters in the capital, to see if improvements were as simple as increased funding.

“We found that crime hadn’t gotten better,” says Ms Malik, adding that despite all of the talk in academia of “defunding the police” or a reducing police presence, people actually want more visible police.

Crime in the UK is difficult to study due to the nature of the data that we have available, with criminals not exactly leaving a receipt for every action they do.

Despite a drop-off in crime during the pandemic, there is concern that crime will rise to the levels seen five years ago.

“The data that we have is data that is police-reported crime data or data from the NHS, but as we know a lot of crime isn’t reported and we simply don’t know the frequency with which it is occurring,” says Ms Malik.

“Trust in police and institutions like courts are breaking down,” she said, adding that often the data was “not reflective of the fear that people felt”.

Recent reports have shown that prisons themselves, the final deterrent for many in the criminal justice system, are overcrowded to the point that offenders will be let out early, something that will do nothing to solve the problems with trust in the UK’s criminal justice system.

Though the deterrent is somewhat important, it is not the complete answer for stopping crime, says Ms Malik.

“We say very clearly in criminal justice work that prevention is easier than cure. So if you can prevent someone from committing that crime, either that means with an increased police presence, or through mechanisms such as stop and search, you are in a much better position than if a crime has already occurred, especially a violent crime.

“What we find in our research is, once that person is in prison, once they have had an encounter with prison, it doesn't matter how long they're in there for, and if they come out early or not, that initial fear of going to prison is gone. And then going back a second or third time isn't as scary. It becomes easier, prison itself serves less of a fear or a deterrent.

“In the first instance, you want to stop the crime from occurring by interacting with that young person, and redirecting them on a course away from crime.

“You also perhaps don't want, for a low level crime, for them to interact with the criminal justice system right away.

“What happens is, we have such a court backlog that more unpleasant or more violent offences end up being in that same backlog as much less serious offences.”

The solutions for the main parties, the voters, and the communities they live in relies on a mix of short-term wins and long-term reform.

“There's a real juxtaposition here between the kind of short term wins that a political party would want and the long term work that it takes to actually reduce crime and increase people's faith in police and the justice system,” says Ms Malik.

“I can imagine any political party wanting to dedicate more money and more police on the ground, trying to rehabilitate the court system.

“Those things would, of course, help create some sense of security and justice, but they're not long term solutions, it's like putting a bandage on a gaping wound.

“The issue is that in order to actually have change, we need to work with the communities on the ground and listen to what it is that they want. They are incredibly deprived communities, deprivation and crime tend to go together, one doesn't cause the other but you know, they tend to be correlated.”