CPF meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7.30pm in the upstairs meeting room at the Salisbury Club.
The Club is at 316 London Road Reading RG1 4HX. Please sign in on arrival ( as not a club member) and you are welcome to buy a drink at the bar to bring upstairs. There is parking available under the office building immediately before the Club as you travel out of Reading.
Please email the office if you intend to take part so we know how many to expect. Roger bale will chair this forum as Laurence Taylor is happily indisposed.
Do invite any friends or neighbours who would enjoy participating in political discussion. Non-members are welcome to attend and share their views on formulating future Conservative policies.
On Wednesday 4th July we will discuss
Justice: securing justice effectively and efficiently
We have invited Anthony Stansfeld the Conservative candidate for the Police and Crime Commissioner election in November to join our forum and he is keen to hear your ideas and opinions.
Preventing crime and ensuring justice for the victims of crime continue to be amongst the highest priorities for the Conservative Party. Fairness must be the foundation on which our criminal justice system is built. In these straitened times, however, it is essential that justice is delivered as cost-effectively as possible.
In its first paper this year, the Home affairs, Justice and Constitution Sectoral Group has examined a range of issues that arise in the criminal justice system. Whilst they may appear at first glance to be a disparate set of issues, questions of fairness and cost effectiveness underlie them all. Factors such as a changing population and the emergence of new categories of criminal behaviour, for example, crimes committed on the internet, have the potential to increase costs within the criminal justice system. Technological advances in the detection, apprehension and punishment of crime have the potential to both save and cost money: for example, improved DNA analysis helps the detection of crime but, in turn, increases costs in the courts and prisons as more defendants are brought to justice.
Please see the attached discussion brief and PowerPoint.
It will be a wide ranging discussion and we will be sending our views back to CCHQ on the following questions:
- Is it right for the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and judges to take into account the pressures on the public purse when considering, respectively, whether to investigate an allegation, whether to prosecute a case or when sentencing a convicted defendant?
- What can be done to change the public’s perception that community sentences do not punish defendants sufficiently?
- Given the success of restorative justice in the youth justice system, should its wider use be piloted in appropriate cases amongst defendants aged 18 years old or older?
- How can government policy reduce re-offending rates? For example, should ex-offenders be able to expunge their criminal records more easily, to help them gain employment?