Youth Crime and Antisocial Behaviour

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) on securing this debate. I know that hon. Members across the House will agree that it is the sense of community—that coming together of people, and the genuine care and compassion that we show each other—that makes our communities great. One benefit of having such an amazing community in Newcastle upon Tyne North is that we have some fantastic community groups, such as the D2 youth project in Newbiggin Hall, the Denton Youth and Community Project in West Denton, and Inspire Youth. Those and many more organisations work incredibly hard to keep young people off the streets and prevent them from falling into crime—something that I know is a major focus for our police and crime commissioner, Kim McGuinness, in Northumbria, who helps to fund many of these projects.

Yet we have to accept that there is a limit to what local agencies can do and what the police can do, despite the bravery and hard work of officers, when we have seen 10 years of devastating cuts to our policing and criminal justice system under Conservative Governments.

Significant pockets of antisocial behaviour simply blight parts of my constituency, in areas where decent people are just trying to get on with their lives. We continue to see significant issues in Newbiggin Hall, with persistent crime and vandalism affecting the day-to-day lives of many people. There are also general concerns about antisocial behaviour across Newbiggin Hall, including motorcycle disorder and drug dealing. West Denton has also seen a significant increase in antisocial behaviour in recent years. In just one week last year, the fire brigade was called out on six out of seven days for fires in the same street. While constituents most frequently raise problems with Newbiggin Hall and West Denton, I know that other neighbourhoods struggle with antisocial behaviour issues. It is unacceptable that any of our constituents should feel unsafe in their own homes, or feel they have to watch their backs when they walk to the shops or worry that their children are sliding into a life of crime, but unfortunately that is the reality for many of my constituents.

The Government have no shortage of rhetoric on crime. Ministers like to tell us how tough they will be and how harshly they will punish the criminals that we manage to catch, but for all the tough talk, the truth is that Conservative cuts to frontline policing and the criminal justice system have caused the proportion of reported crimes ending in prosecution to plummet over the last 10 years. For example, in 2013-14, more than a quarter of violence against the person offences recorded by police in England and Wales ended in prosecution; in 2016, it was around 17%. By 2019-20 and 2020-21, it had fallen to just 6% and 9% respectively.

Tough talk and harsh punishments will not stop these people making our constituents’ lives a nightmare while the Government refuse to give the police the resources to catch them in the first place, and the justice system the ability to see it through. I am afraid to say that this has created an environment where antisocial behaviour can be seen to take place with relative impunity. That is incredibly frustrating for those on the receiving end of it. We know that the police are recruiting 20,000 new officers to partially compensate for past cuts, but Ministers have shown far less interest in replacing the backroom staff essential to supporting their colleagues out on the beat. That means that police officers will still be pulled into administrative duties that do not require a trained police officer.

The first duty of any state is to ensure the safety of its people. After 10 years of various Conservative Governments hollowing out the police and criminal justice system, the British state, for many of my constituents, is simply failing in that duty. We need a Labour Government that will put community safety first. That means more police out there tackling crime, antisocial behaviour and dangerous driving—the things they came into the force to do. It means funding and restoring youth projects and treatment services that prevent crime. It means providing real support and justice for victims.