It was great to have the Prime Minister in Horsham last week alongside our Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne. I particularly enjoyed being able to praise our Horsham Town Police Team for the improvements they are making in policing to not just the Chief Constable but the PM!
Residents have welcomed an enhanced pattern of policing in Horsham which I know the team are in the process of rolling out across the District. I have no doubt this will help to tackle incidents of Anti Social Behaviour which I know has been a concern in at least one of our villages.
Overall crime has, excluding fraud, dropped by over half over the last 14 years but there is a lot more to be done to improve conviction rates and also to tackle specific offences.
The Prime Minister used his visit to launch the Fighting Retail Crime plan which will crack down on shoplifting and offences against retail staff through a raft of new measures, including tags for repeat offenders, £55.5 million for facial recognition technology and a specific new offence for assaulting shop workers.
I have no doubt the best place for violent offenders is in prison. Getting them off our streets is a benefit to society and a deterrent however it cannot end there. We need time "inside" to give offenders the opportunity to secure a different future for themselves which does not involve them committing further offences but being successful members of the community.
As a Minister I was keen to support ex-offenders into paid employment - a critical step on helping them to a better future. I had a very positive visit to HMP Lewes, our local prison, last week. In common with the whole prison estate they have to battle against organised crime gangs attempting to operate inside their walls and to address drug smuggling and other offences, but they are also focussed on ensuring that inmates have the opportunity to improve their literacy, numeracy, language skills and can learn a trade.
The prison is working with household-name companies attempting to give inmates the opportunity to start afresh when they leave prison. This is the right approach – we want it to work for them and in doing so work for us all.