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News - TIME FOR ACTION TO BEAT CRIME

At the last election, the Scottish Conservatives campaigned hard for more police on the beat, zero tolerance on crime and the end to automatic early release.

In the last few months, the overall picture on crime has been extremely disappointing. A recent Herald & Post front page article highlighted that ‘Crime statistics hit record high.’ According to published figures recorded crime rose to its highest level in Scotland last year.

The number of recorded crimes increased by 6% to 438,093. On top of that, hardly a week goes by without us hearing about a serious offence committed by someone who was released early from prison. To add insult to injury, a recent United Nations report stated that Scotland was one of the most dangerous developed countries in the world.

It is time for action.

The Scottish Conservatives recently, for the fourth time, put forward proposals in the Scottish Parliament to end automatic early release. However, the proposals were rejected by the Labour/Lib Dem Executive. It would appear Labour and the Lib Dems are quite content for criminals to be released automatically after serving only 50% of their sentence.

The Scottish Conservatives also continue to press for changes to the current system of bail operating in Scotland. We are deeply concerned about public safety because of the widespread availability of bail and the incidence of people offending while out on bail.

Gavin Brown said: -

“Law and order is the cornerstone of a fair and civilised society. Failing to get that right has a negative effect on all other aspects of our lives. It is time for the Executive to put more police on the beat, remove all unnecessary administrative burdens and focus on helping the victims of crime instead of the criminals. Automatic early release must end now and we need a set of tough new measures to ensure certain categories of offence should be denied bail.”