Summary: We are piloting a £25 million Safer Streets Fund to help tackle acquisitive crime.
- After a long and sustained fall in acquisitive crime such as vehicle theft and home burglary, evidence suggests it has risen, causing emotional and physical harm to law-abiding and hardworking citizens.
- To help prevent this, we are piloting a £25 million Safer Streets Fund for prevention measures such as CCTV, alleygating, street lighting and home security which either remove opportunities to commit crime or act as a deterrent by increasing the chances an offender is caught.
- Through empowering the police to keep us safe we are sending a clear message to criminals that they should feel terror at the thought of committing offences.
Background
- After a fall in acquisitive crime, recent figures indicate a rise. Estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales show that last year there were 3.9 million acquisitive offences, 14 per cent more than the same period two years ago. Acquisitive offences make up over 60 per cent of all crime measured by the Crime Survey for England and Wales, excluding fraud and computer misuse.
Our solution
- We are piloting a new £25 million Safer Streets Fund to reduce incidents of theft and make people feel safer. The Fund will be targeted towards acquisitive crime hotspots to reduce offences such as burglary, theft and robbery. The Fund will be used to implement evidence-based interventions such as CCTV, alleygating, street lighting and home security to make people feel safer in their own homes.
Conservative record
- Hiring 20,000 additional police officers to keep our streets safe. The unprecedented drive to deliver 20,000 more police officers over the next three years has begun with the launch of a national recruitment campaign, overseen by a new National Policing Board and backed by £750 million next year.
Q: Are you accepting that police cuts led to an increase in crime?
The rise we have seen in serious violence is deeply worrying, which is why we are putting 20,000 extra police on our streets and giving them the powers they need to keep people safe.
