Boris Johnson throws £3.6 Billion to fund Police officers and prison spaces- A necessary policy, or throwing fuel to the fire?

It has been all over the news that Boris Johnson has put £3.6 Billion into the funding of 20,000 new police officers and has ‘created’ 10,000 more prison spaces. ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49318400).

This blog aims to critically examine the portrayal of violence with its causations and solutions through the Neo- conservative lens and its distorted realities as well as methods of Conservative retention of power through these right realist approaches concerning crime and justice.

It can be argued that this right realist approach is deeply flawed and problematic. Firstly this policy simply is a case of exploring the issue of a rise in violent crime as being an issue to tackle with punitive measures. The individual is to blame entirely and rational choice is where we must lie our societal blame. However it is apparent that structural issues and social harms fuelled through consumer capitalism and Neoliberal social policy is not considered here. Since the Conservatives have come to power in 2010, there have been detrimental cutbacks which have impacted on communities. The YMCA conducted research covered by the Guardian which highlighted that net spending on Youth centres and services in England has dropped by £737 million (62%) since the 2010 coalition. This has quantified to 600 youth centres closed, 3,500 youth workers out becoming unemployed and 140,000 places for young people on youth and community projects being taken away. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/31/slashing-youth-services-tories-betrayed-generation-labour-legal-requirement . To give more numbers to the debate, since the 2010 coalition, across all 43 Police Forces in England and Wales have had cutbacks of between 19,000 and 22,000 police officers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42977661  this new policy announced this week by Boris Johnson, isn’t creating a surplus, is just reinstating the original status quo. 

From a critical standpoint, it can be argued that the Conservatives use crime and justice to retain their political power. It starts with neoliberal politics. Harvey (2005) interprets neoliberalism as a theory of liberation whereby the values of individualism, autonomy, free markets and trade is promoted and encouraged by the state. Thorsen and Lie (2006) argue that this age of collective individualism, fuelled by consumer capitalism see a rise in social capital and aspirational values, which are made unattainable for many because of mass cutbacks and social exclusion. It can be argued that this mass social exclusion and unattainability has led to a listening gap. (Bakkali 2018). A listening gap whereby youth groups in particular are struggling to find a purpose and place to fit into this society of demand, competition, individualism and raised aspirations. This is where we see a rise in ‘boredom’ and antisocial behaviour on the streets. You will often find that the blame and accountability is being placed on the hands of agencies such as schools and the NHS. This article from April 2019 demonstrates this appointment of responsibility.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47768631.

The article reports on the Governments approach to hold ‘schools and NHS accountable’ for youth and violent crime. At this stage the public are now looking at a society which is plagued with street violence, gang warfare and ‘bored’ teenagers looting shops. What they want is a call for harsher sentences and a punitive approaches which of course is something that the Conservatives can provide, as we have seen earlier this week when Boris Johnson made the announcement that he was funding 10,000 new prison places and 20,000 police officers. Arguably due to media representation of violence and moral panics, this is what the public want to hear and as a result, on the model of crime and justice, the Conservatives seem to be the party to vote for and this is how power is restored, despite the fact that it was their policies which arguably have left this rise in violent crime.

Zizek (2008) interprets physical violence we see on the streets and in the domestic sphere as being generated by the systematic violence that sustains our political and economic systems. This argument can be tied into the theory that violence is a potent symbol of the structural and societal issues which have fuelled this rise in violent crime. Zizek (2008) also argues that the emergence of the ‘beasts’ lurking in our bourgeois, civilised society as being the products of consumer capitalism. Treadwell (2012) argues that the capitalist culture has absorbed the working classes into a state of drive, desire to access the socio-symbolic life of consumer culture and this has led to a rise in a narcissistic, competitive, individualised subjectivity which is a reflection of post political capitalist realism. By drawing from these narratives, it is arguably clear that the rise in violent crime which according to the Conservatives is requiring the implementation of 10,000 more prison places and 20,000 ‘new’ police officers isn’t as apparent. The deeply rooted structural and political issues which have has left groups unable to fit into the jigsaw puzzle of normative and mainstream society have been left displaced and left behind on the platform of consumer capitalism. It is clear through the empirical works of Zizek that violence is more symbolic. Until money is thrown at addressing these issues, I struggle to see a future whereby violent crime can be reduced or ‘solved’.

References: 

• BBC News (July 2019)- Recruitment of 20,000 new police officers to begin within weeks, Date accessed: 17th August 2019. URL available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49123319 
• Bakkali Y (2018) life on road: symbolic struggle and the munpain, University of Sussex, Sussex.  
• Coughlan S (2019) Schools and NHS could be held accountable over Youth Crime, available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47768631, date accessed: 17th August  2019. 
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• Harvey D (2005) - A brief history of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Thorsen E.D and Lie A (2006) ‘What is Neoliberalism, Research Gate. Vol 1, p1.  
• Treadwell J, Hall S, Winlow S (2012), shopocalypse now: consumer culture and the English Riots of 2011, British Journal of Criminology vol 1. 
•  Smith C (2018), by slashing youth services, the Tories have betrayed a generation, Available at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/31/slashing-youth-services-tories-betrayedgeneration-labour-legal-requirement date accessed: 17th August 2019.