The £5bn announcement centres on hiring 20,000 extra police officers, building 10,000 more prison places, and an expansion of the stop and search provision. Very law, very order.
No one wants to see crime occur without any apparent response from the police, as it does too often at the moment. An hour spent with a child in trouble will quickly convince you that the threat of detection - not punishment, mind, just getting caught - is a major element in building desistance. The risk of 20,000 extra officers comes not from extra detection but from what might happen next. This is the "scare 'em straight" approach, the one criminal justice programme that has most spectacularly failed wherever tried.
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