Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Agrees With Police Chief on Restorative Justice (Flintshire Liberal Democrats)

Flintshire Liberal Democrats <info@flintshirelibdems.org.uk>

Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Agrees With Police Chief on Restorative Justice

January 5, 2010 7:46 PM

Bill Brereton 4th January, 2010.

To All North Wales Media

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to congratulate Mark Polin, North Wales' new Chief Constable, on his visionary and bold approach in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour in our region for the coming years. This is long overdue and represents a much more constructive approach to tackling offending.

As a former Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales, with most of my policing background in Liverpool City Centre, I know that restorative justice is an effective system in dealing with the reoffending rates of criminals and delinquents. Studies by the highly respected Prison Reform Trust show that reoffending rates are much lower when appropriate offenders are involved in schemes like these.

Restorative justice programmes are not soft options. They confront criminals with the consequences of their actions. When they get to see first hand how their crimes affect others, they can realise that the impact of their crimes and the affect on victims. Of course they will not work for everyone, they need to be used selectively.

Under this Labour government, the number of people sent to prisons has increased with more and more criminals reoffending when they come out, proving that Labour are soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime. Prison should be only used for the most appropriate cases.

I am standing as a Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate in North Wales because we believe in restorative justice and giving the community a voice in promoting solutions to the wrongs in our society - tackling the root causes of crime, not just brushing it under the carpet, only for it to reappear in a far worse form.

Bill Brereton

Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Delyn

and Former Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales.