Photocall opportunity:
11am, Friday 22nd February 2008; outside Norbury Police Station, 1516 London Road, Norbury, London, SW16 4ES. Croydon and Sutton candidate Shasha Khan and London Mayor candidate Siân Berry
Siân Berry, the Green Party's candidate for London Mayor, will visit Croydon on Friday (22nd February) to launch the London Assembly campaign of Green Part candidate for Croydon and Sutton Shasha Khan.
The candidates will be highlighting the need for more police on the streets.
Croydon could see burglaries halved under a Green Mayor with Siân Berry's plan to provide Safer Neighbourhood Team patrols round-the-clock. A pilot in Fulham cut the rate of residential burglaries by 52% [1], and the Greens argue that officers should be diverted from less vital areas to improve street-level policing.
Shasha said:
"As a member of the ward panel for Bensham Manor Safer Neighbourhood Team, I can see first hand the deficiencies of the current policing strategy. We need more Police Constables and more Police Community Support Officers on the beat to make Croydon neighbourhoods feel safer.
"The most effective way to do that is through Safer Neighbourhood Teams - trusted officers who are known to their local community and who can do the vital work to reduce crime as well as prosecute it. Instead we have Gordon Brown pushing ID cards, Boris Johnson hinting at racial profiling and budget proposals from Ken Livingstone that would assign 297 officers to an Olympics still 4 years away. [2]
"We want to feel safe in our local area when we get home late in the evening and when we are asleep, not just during office hours. We'll beat crime not by tough-talking gimmicks, but by real community policing. Twenty-four-hour Safer Neighbourhood Teams have been shown to work in Fulham, and they will work in Croydon."
Siân said:
"Shasha is someone who really understands what is needed to cut crime on our streets - and it's not ID cards or macho posturing. Electing more Greens to the Assembly means proper community policing, and Shasha in particular has the experience to deliver that."
ENDS
Notes to editors
1. In the pilot, in the Fulham Broadway ward of Hammersmith and Fulham, residential burglaries in the Fulham Broadway ward dropping to 38 between April and September 2007, compared to 80 in the same period last year. Presently, Safer Neighbourhood Teams are not normally available after 6pm.
2. Green AM Jenny Jones, a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, questioned the Mayor over this assignment at the budget committee meeting of the London Assembly on 19th December 2007. The Mayor’s budget papers for the coming year shows an increase of up to 297 extra officers to be employed on Olympics preparations and a further 300 police officers for dedicated security posts.
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