Catherine West Working hard for Hornsey & Friern Barnet
Violent crime has shot up over recent years at the same time as devastating Tory and Lib Dem austerity has seen 21,000 police officers taken off UK streets, 760 youth centres closed and schools at crisis point. In London since 2010 we’ve seen neighbourhood policing numbers slashed by a staggering 75% and, when criminals are charged, trials are delayed for years because of the biggest courts backlog on record.
In Parliament, I’ve led a debate on violent crime in our borough, met with the Home Secretary to urge an end to police funding cuts and called for a special fund to help children at risk of school exclusion. Hundreds of local people signed the open letter I delivered to Downing Street urging the Government to act now on this national emergency.
A Labour Government would bring back neighbourhood policing by putting 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and Police Community Support Officers on our streets, and we’d tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls by delivering specialist support for victims in every police force.