Crime

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Enhancing Public Safety and Disempowering Organized Crime

Introduction

Our manifesto is committed to better resourcing of policing to allow them to focus on critical social priorities, including public safety and protecting the rights of women to a safe environment. We recognize the need to disrupt organized crime and improve the effectiveness of law enforcement through innovative policy changes.

Key Objectives

1. Disempowering Organized Crime through Legalization of Narcotics
   • Decriminalization: Legalize the manufacture, sale, and consumption of all classes of narcotics to undercut the black market.
   • Health and Safety: Improve health outcomes and significantly reduce drug-related deaths through quality control at the point of sale.
   • Public Health Initiatives: Continue and enhance public health initiatives to dissuade substance abuse, particularly focusing on vulnerable populations.
2. Reforming the Use of King's Evidence
   • Enhanced Whistle-Blower Protections: Reform and extend the use of King's Evidence to encourage lawful cooperation with police.
   • Secure Reporting Channels: Establish guaranteed secure channels for informants to report criminal activity safely.
   • AI Integration: Utilize AI technology to protect informants and enhance the accuracy and security of information provided to law enforcement.
3. Focusing Policing Resources on Public Safety
   • Targeted Law Enforcement: Redirect police resources from enforcing drug prohibition to tackling more serious crimes, including personal violence, and corruption.
   • Women's Safety: Prioritize the protection of women, ensuring they have a safe environment free from violence and harassment.
   • Community Policing: Invest in community policing initiatives to build trust and cooperation between law enforcement and local communities.

Detailed Proposals

1. Legalization of Narcotics
   • Economic Impact: Legalizing narcotics will reduce the profitability of organized crime by eliminating the black market for drugs.
   • Quality Control: Regulate the production and sale of narcotics to ensure product safety, reducing health risks associated with unregulated substances.
   • Tax Revenue: Generate tax revenue from the sale of narcotics, which can be reinvested in public health, education, and addiction support services.
2. Reforming King's Evidence
   • Legal Framework: Create a legal framework that allows individuals to report criminal offers safely and lawfully.
   • Rewards for Informants: Implement a reward system for informants who provide valuable information leading to convictions, including a judge’s thanks and financial incentives.
   • AI and Surveillance: Deploy AI to manage initial contacts and subsequent reporting, ensuring the security and reliability of the information provided.
3. Enhancing Policing for Public Safety
   • Resource Allocation: Allocate police resources more effectively by focusing on preventing and responding to serious crimes.
   • Women's Safety Initiatives: Develop and fund programs specifically aimed at protecting women from violence and ensuring their safety in public and private spaces.
   • Community Engagement: Strengthen community policing efforts to foster stronger relationships between police and the communities they serve, enhancing overall safety and trust.

Strategic Recommendations

1. Holistic Policy Approach
   • Integrated Strategies: Ensure that policies on narcotics, public safety, and crime prevention are integrated and mutually reinforcing.
   • Collaborative Efforts: Work with public health officials, community leaders, and international partners to implement comprehensive solutions.
2. Public Communication and Education
   • Transparency: Maintain transparent communication with the public about the benefits and rationale behind these policy changes.
   • Education Campaigns: Launch education campaigns to inform the public about the new legal framework for narcotics, the importance of whistle-blowing, and community safety initiatives.
3. Monitoring and Evaluation
   • Data-Driven Policies: Implement systems to monitor and evaluate the outcomes of these policy changes, making data-driven adjustments as necessary.
   • Continuous Improvement: Ensure continuous feedback from stakeholders to improve the effectiveness of public safety and crime prevention strategies.

Conclusion

Our manifesto commitment to better resourcing of policing aims to enhance public safety, particularly protecting women's rights to a safe environment, and to disempower organized crime through innovative legal and policy reforms. By legalizing narcotics, reforming King's Evidence, and focusing policing resources on more significant social priorities, we can build a safer, more just, and inclusive society.

The war on drugs

Much crime is organized to profit from illegal import and sale where legal commerce cannot compete.

To limit these illegal opportunities we will decriminalize in particular the manufacture, sale and consumption of all classes of narcotics.

The resulting quality at the point of sale will improve health outcomes and reduce deaths significantly, while organized criminal recruitment and involvement in drug distribution will be a thing of the past.

The most lethal drug of choice, alcohol, has never been banned and will continue to kill more people and lead to more antisocial behaviour than all these decriminalized drugs put together ever have. We will continue public health initiatives to dissuade vulnerable users from substance abuse.

Supporting whistleblowers

We will reform and extend the use of King's Evidence, and in particular the policing of corruption. Anyone approached with an offer of criminal profit should be lawfully able to immediately and enthusiastically agree, contingent on his then giving heads-up notification to a guaranteed secure channel into police intelligence. Continuing to forward information should result in the informant getting the judge's thanks and a proportionate reward from the public purse when the schemers are found guilty in court.

This isn't encouraging people to participate in crime, it's what any reasonable citizen would do were the risk of being taken for a criminal, or exposed to danger as an informer, not the deterrent it currently must be. It would, among other things, bring to light much currently unrecognized white-collar crime. Whistle-blowing must be incorporated into crime prevention in a way that rewards social responsibility.

A larger proportion of these crimes could be prosecuted as conspiracy with the same penalties. This involves less risk to the public than only reacting once the crime had been committed. There is a major potential improvement in public safety if the police are aware of the planned crime before it happens.

The advent of AI as an intermediary in the initial contact and subsequent reporting phase can establish a far likelier cordon around the information and subsequent surveillance, which in turn provides potentially far more confirmation of the truth of the original report.