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Home Secretary visits Leeds INTERVIEW
Leeds's trouble-hit communities should be allowed to write their own "mandate" to rid themselves of antisocial behaviour and vandalism, Home Secretary Alan Johnson told the YEP.
The minister in charge of the country's crime, policing and antisocial behaviour laws was responding to recent calls from city campaigners for CCTV at cemeteries following spates of trouble, including thefts from graves.
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"Well I think CCTV (in cemeteries] is a very good idea," Mr Johnson said.
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"We've got plans to allow local communities to kind of mandate CCTV, to insist on having it if that's what they believe is necessary.
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"As well as neighbourhood policing and as well as local authorities tackling antisocial behaviour, one really important component is communities themselves deciding 'we are not going to put up with this.'
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"Right across the country there are heroes and heroines everywhere who…are not going to just shut the door and leave it to everyone else.
"There's parental responsibility here and there is community responsibility. And when they do that they transform their local communities."
He also backed calls for increased local funding and investment into neighbourhood wardens, insisting it was a local decision rather than a central Government one.
Despite his comments about fighting local problems locally, the Minister insisted things weren't that bad.
In recent days Mr Johnson has become embroiled in a political row over crime figures, as rivals claimed violent crime had risen since Labour came to power.
"Crime in Leeds is down, it's down overall," he insisted.
"The British Crime Survey is very clear and there is no war of statistics.
"We should not stifle debate, people are of course still experiencing crime and antisocial behaviour and we have to tackle it, but this whole idea that we are somehow living in a broken society when the statistics show – wherever you want to look – that actually things are much better than they were 30 years ago… I don't get that from talking to communities and I talk to them all the time."
But despite talking at length about tackling crime in our communities, Mr Johnson would not be drawn over the power of the courts and over recent reports that Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe could make a bid for freedom.
Asked if he could offer reassurance to the public that the 13-times murderer would never be freed, he said that was a matter entirely for the Lord Chancellor and the Justice Secretary and not within his remit.
The Home Secretary was in Leeds to help fundraise for local parliamentary candidates Rachel Reeves and Jamie Hanley in the run-up to the General Election.
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Weather for Leeds
Wednesday 08 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: -5 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Light sleet
Temperature: 0 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South
