Sunak and Truss: Pledge Tougher Justice

London: Inside Time: The two contenders to become the next Prime Minister have unveiled hard-line policies on crime and justice as they battle for the votes of Conservative party members. Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that if he was in charge, people considered ‘career criminals’ would automatically have an extra year added to their sentence when they are convicted of another offence. He did not specify who would qualify for the extra time and what offences would be covered by the pledge; journalists were briefed that it would be for the Ministry of Justice to decide. He said: “I will cut crime by locking the most prolific offenders up, keeping them locked up, and building the prison space needed to do so.”

Truss said she wanted to impose targets on police forces to cut homicide, serious violence and “neighbourhood crime” by 20 per cent before the next general election. Her government would publish league tables to show which forces were hitting the target, and summon chief constables of lagging forces to explain themselves to ministers. Truss’s opponents warned that such target-setting for police forces had been tried in the past and had produced unintended consequences, with police trying to reach their goals by mis-recording crimes and ignoring categories of crime which were not covered by the targets. Truss is also promising faster processing of rape complaints, a national register of people convicted of domestic abuse, and a new criminal offence of street harassment. Sunak has pledged a new offence of “downblousing” – taking a photograph down a woman’s top without her consent.