Prime Minister Tony Blair was trying yesterday to refocus attention on his efforts to crack down on crime and overhaul Britain's justice system after weeks of furious political debate over the length of criminal sentences.
Tabloid newspapers have been battering the government with accusations that many judges are letting dangerous criminals go free too soon and are not concerned enough with victims' needs.
Home Secretary John Reid, the nation's top law enforcement official, responded by asking the attorney general to appeal a child sex abuse sentence Reid thought was too lenient. That prompted charges that the government was attacking judges' independence.
PHOTO: AP
Blair planned to say in a speech in the western English city of Bristol that Britons must have a serious, in-depth debate on how to balance defendants' rights with the need to fight crime. The system, he argues, must be "rebalanced" to give more weight to the rights of crime victims and more power to law enforcement.
"It's no use saying that in theory there should be no conflict between the traditional protections for the suspects and the rights of the law-abiding majority," Blair planned to say, according to advance excerpts of the speech released by his office.
"Because as a result of the changing nature of crime and society, there is in practice such a conflict, and every day we don't resolve it by rebalancing the system, the consequence is not abstract -- it is out there, very real, on our streets," he said.
It was to be the first in a series of speeches on domestic policy that Blair's office says he plans to deliver in the coming months.
Blair's call for "rebalancing" drew some skeptical responses from experts who participated in a seminar at the prime minister's office.
"There are members of this society who plainly feel the way you say they do about crime and punishment -- angry, let down and demanding of a response," said Ian Loader, director of the Oxford Centre for Criminology, in a paper posted on Blair's Web site. "But I think they are in fact in a minority, albeit one that makes or prompts a lot of noise."
Julian Roberts, assistant director of the center, noted that a major British survey indicated that the number of crimes per year has fallen by more than 40 percent since 1995. However, the adult prison population increased by 71 percent between 1991 and 2003 to a total of 62,000. In April, the number of prisoners exceeded 77,000.
Although this suggests that the system is becoming tougher on criminals, Roberts said he that "providing more extensive victims' rights and services is a good idea not to placate crime victims, but to reflect changes in societal reaction to criminal justice."
The prime minister met victims of crime in a poor area of Bristol late on Thursday, asking them about their experiences and taking notes as they spoke.
He planned to say in his speech that while modern society was changing fundamentally, the criminal justice system was still stuck in the past. Communities are becoming less stable and drug-related violence is far more common than decades ago, Blair's speech said.
"The challenges faced by the criminal justice and immigration systems have grown exponentially," he planned to say. "Not in a small way, but in a way that frankly mocks a system built not for another decade but another age. We end up fighting 21st-century problems with 19th-century solutions."
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