The lawful majority are suffering from the effects of the criminal minority

JAMES VITALI

Before anything else, the first duty of government is to keep its citizens safe – from external threats and from the injuries of others. Indeed, that is why we have government in the first place; we establish it because alone we are unable to provide for our own safety.

Order and security are the prerequisites for all other societal goods. We frequently think of liberty and order as somehow mutually exclusive, but actually, they are mutually constitutive; we cannot truly live a life of freedom and prosperity until we are confident that we will not be arbitrarily deprived of our life, liberty or property by criminals, or threatened and intimidated by foreign actors.

Governments can fail in other areas of policy. Citizens can tolerate low economic growth for at least some period. They can put up for a time with an irrational tax system or a self-defeating energy policy. But when government fails in this core competency to protect its citizens, it is an issue of an altogether greater magnitude.

This is precisely what is happening throughout Britain today. Insecurity from threats abroad is rightly the focus of discussion at the moment, as we learn how woefully ill-equipped our armed forces are to discharge their most basic functions. But insecurity at home from the scourge of crime is also compromising the British state’s very legitimacy.

Police recorded shoplifting is now up 51 per cent relative to 2015 and is at its highest level in 20 years. Police recorded robberies and knife crime offences are up 64 per cent and 89 per cent respectively over the same period. Public order offences are up 192 per cent. The cost of fraud in the benefit system has increased almost eightfold since 2006.

The criminal justice system — the arm of the state which is meant to uphold and maintain order – is floundering. Prisons have reached capacity, and thousands are being released early as a result. Criminals with literally hundreds of convictions are being let off without custodial sentences. The ratio of police personnel to the population is down 12 per cent from 2010.

And to underscore the relationship between order and prosperity, this is coming with crushing costs for the UK economy. In our latest Policy Exchange report, we found that just the direct costs of crime amount to around 7 per cent of GDP.

None of this was inevitable. It is the direct consequence of political choices made by successive administrations

But our research shows that huge costs also derive from the indirect effects on people’s behaviour – the change in behaviour that derives from a heightened fear that one might be a victim of crime. The decision by businesses not to operate in certain areas, or individuals not to frequent certain high streets at night, or the increased risk aversion that must follow an increased expectation of crime. When these are taken into account, the cost of crime to British society might be upwards of 10 per cent of GDP.

How could we possibly have reached this situation? None of this was inevitable. It is the direct consequence of political choices made by successive administrations.

Firstly, law and order has slipped down the government’s priority list, at the same time as the state has taken on a plethora of new responsibilities in the lives of citizens. State expenditure now amount to around 45 per cent of GDP, yet we have fewer police officers and police stations per capita than fifteen years ago. The state is leaving undone those things it ought to do, and doing so many things it ought not to do.

But more important in these trends has been a set of ideas that have driven recent criminal justice policy. The unifying theme of those ideas can be summed up in one word: permissiveness. Police are too lax about minor crime, our courts are too lenient towards repeat offenders, and we generally give too much weight to the interests of criminals at the expense of those of the law-abiding majority. Part of this is undoubtedly a tendency to treat offenders not as moral agents with choice, but as subjects of systems and structures which they themselves cannot be held accountable for.

State failure, poor prioritisation and permissiveness have together produced a situation where businesses and individuals themselves have to take on the responsibility for combatting crime by adjusting their behaviour — a responsibility that should properly sit with the state.

Change is urgently required. That will require a significant surge of investment — we recommend £5 billion extra per annum which will in turn involve a serious revaluation of Government priorities. Funding should be raised not from an increase in taxation, but from spending reductions elsewhere in public spending profile.

Even then, for that money to have the right effect, we must end the permissive approach to criminal justice. More people need to be put behind bars, not fewer. To give communities a break, repeat offenders deserve tougher sentences. And we need to get smarter at policing at both the tactical and strategic levels. Tried and tested policing methods like stop and search need to be pursued without fear or favour, and police forces should focus more on those hotspot areas that attract the most crime.

Fundamentally, what is required is a reformulation of the balance between those that abide by the law and those that break it. Quite simply, we need to incentivise and reward people to lead good lives, and punish those who lead wicked ones. Doing so will not only help in a large way to restore faith in government. It will also be critical in restoring the UK’s economic vitality, and making it more robust against foreign actors who would do us harm.

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This article (Britain must lower the cost of crime) was created and published by The Critic and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author James Vitali

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