Arabnews24.ca:Wednesday 22 March 2023 07:41 PM: Sir Keir Starmer will promise to halve levels of violence against women and girls within 10 years of Labour taking office.
The Labour leader will also pledge to halve serious violent crime and raise confidence in the police and criminal justice system following a damning report into Scotland Yard by Baroness Casey.
Sir Keir will claim Rishi Sunak's party is "out of touch" and too detached from reality in some of the UK's most deprived communities.
The former director of public prosecutions will set out his priorities for police reform and a "proper victims' law" in a speech on Thursday.
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2:33 "You can't defeat misogyny without robust policing, but you can't have robust policing without defeating misogyny," he will say.
"We'll put specialist domestic abuse workers in the control rooms of every police force, responding to 999 calls, supporting victims of abuse. We'll get a specialist rape unit in every police force.
"And we'll also set up dedicated rape courts - the current prosecution rates are a disgrace."
It is "always working people who pay the heaviest price" for crime, with working class communities too often "living under its shadow", he will say.
Speaking to an audience in Stoke, Sir Keir will add that "this is personal" as it is the "unfinished business in my life's work".
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"As somebody who has worked in criminal justice for most of my life, I also know that far too often, the inequalities that still scar our society, class, race, gender, find an expression in the very system that is supposed to protect us all, without discrimination," he will say.
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1:57 Sir Keir will add that Labour's plan would "tackle the crime wave gnawing away at our collective sense of security".
And he will claim the Tories "can't see the Britain they've created".
"Their kids don't go to the same schools. Nobody fly-tips on their streets. The threat of violence doesn't stalk their communities. They don't see the problems, and so they're complacent about the need for solutions, out of touch with the realities of modern Britain.
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"They should try and walk in your shoes for a day or two."
On Wednesday in House of Commons, Sir Keir accused the government of "sheer negligence" over policing following the Casey Review into the Met Police that was released this week.
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The prime minister hit back, arguing that Baroness Casey had said "primary public accountability of the Met sits with the Mayor of London" and that she called the relationship Labour's Sadiq Khan had with the force "dysfunctional".
Following the release of the report, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said it was "clear" that there had been "serious failings" in the force "at a leadership and cultural level" but did not accept that austerity contributed to the problem.
"What we've seen is an increased number in police officers throughout England and Wales, and that's thanks to government funding," she said. "We've seen millions of pounds distributed throughout police forces to reach the front line to make our streets safer and to prevent violent crime.
"That's good progress to increase the resources and to make our streets safer."
