Police and Crime Commissioner elections - important

[Needmoresleep]

All sorts of elections are taking place in early May. Postal votes will be dropping through letter boxes any day now.

The expectation is that many will vote either for the party they have always voted for, or to express dissatisfaction with the current government, and the worry is that the PCC vote will go the same way.

Please don't do this. If we want Stonewall to stop training and advising our police forces, we need people vote for the PCC candidate who explicitly says they won't allow Stonewall to influence their force.

In some cases this will be the Conservative or a Conservatively minded independent, which might not be a bad thing. The next Government is very likely to be Labour with a strong majority. Labour along with LibDems and Greens will also dominate Local Authorities. PCCs who are willing to stand up and protect their forces against Stonewallification will be a useful, indeed essential, brake.

I understand that one of the women's organisations are surveying candidates across the country and, once they have responses, will give more guidance. In the meantime think before using your postal vote.

And, FWIW, David Sidwick the incumbent in Dorset, is a good bloke, who works hard and takes his job seriously. (I know him!)

Does anyone have any knowldege on restorative justice?

My LibDem candidate says this:
"Central to Paul’s platform is the implementation of restorative justice practices, offering a compassionate and effective alternative to traditional punitive measures. By fostering accountability, healing, and reconciliation, restorative justice not only reduces reoffending but also strengthens community bonds, promoting a sense of trust and cooperation between law enforcement and the public."

My first thoughts are no. If someone does me a wrong, I don't want them being told something like 'that wasn't very kind, now you need to apologies and don't do it again'. I want the law enforced and justice to follow. I don't see how it fosters accountability for wider society and does it really reduce reoffending. Seems to me like a slap on the wrist - don't do it again buddy; how does that promote a sense of trust in law enforcement?

I don't know enough about it.

Restorative justice has to be a mutually agreeable process and certainly in my (albeit limited) experience it can be very effective. That said, both sides need to be very clear about the boundaries and limitations and it’s total unsuitable for many sexual/violent crimes.

Thanks for this. I was just looking into my local candidates this morning and we have tory (probably will win as people here would vote for a turnip with a blue rosette), labour (brave to even try in this area), lib dem (possibly) or an anti corruption bloke (wild card).
All their emails are listed so I will ask them their stance on stonewall.

I'd really question someone advocating restorative justice. It must never be used for domestic abuse, sexual violence and so on. I would definitely ask detailed questions about it if you can.

I did not know that. Never seen it before on ballot papers. Thank you.

Lisa Townsend is the current PCC, she is a great supporter of women's rights, and has successfully fought off an attempt by Crispin Blunt to remove her for her gender critical views.

She is a Tory and one of the good ones.
Edited to say Lisa is in Surrey

Thank you for this. Just had a look at who’s standing in my area. The Lib Dem candidate helpfully lists his favourite biscuit🙄

I used the Fair Cop manifesto to email the others

Yes, I wrote to him (I'm not even in England!)and had a response.

Please do write to your reps and raise issues that matter to you and ask questions. Use the system that is there, even if you are not sure about how good it is or whether it'll work.

Sometimes it doesn't have much of an impact, but dogged persistence means that sometimes it really does.

In case it's of interest/helps anyone.

I'm still reading through the documents, but this bit has jumped out at me. Since one of my candidates is centering Restorative Justice, I need to ask him about which crimes he does and does not deem it suitable for.

"From a Home Office perspective, these offences could be considered VAWG related:

• All DA flagged offences, including domestic homicide
• All HBA flagged offences, including forced marriage and FGM
• All sexual offences
• Stalking
• Coercive and Controlling Behaviour
• Harassment (8L only)
• Threaten to/disclose private images (Revenge Porn)
• Up-skirting
• We recognise there might be some other offences that are VAWG related but not captured by the above list, however, it is expected the above will capture the vast majority of relevant offences.
• The list is likely to increase as further legislation is developed to protect women and girls from this epidemic of violence including sexual violence."

Home Office Crime Recording Rules

Done. I have emailed all mine candidates and will await their response...(I also attached the Fair Cop manifesto)

From our Conservative PCC incumbent in Dorset. I understand we are waiting to hear form the others. I hope their responses will be as good.

"Many thanks for getting in touch with your concerns around the rights and safety of women in custody. It is a topic I care deeply about, and I believe it is important as I believe in advocating for the safety of women and girls. I am very happy to answers the questions you shared below:

1. My definition of the word woman is an adult female human being. This is as defined in both the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries, and something which I do not believe should be controversial or up for debate.

1. In regard to guidance on strip searching, my frustration starts with the lack of conclusive legislation in this area – for example there is no legal definition of “sex” in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) when it comes to searches, and the delay to the Government review of the Gender Recognition Act means there is a lack of clear guidance when it comes to transitioned or transitioning officers and the activity they can and/or should undertake in this area.

1. With regard to Collage of Policing Guidance, Dorset Police were originally following the old NPCC guidance which was removed following the Woman’s Rights Network report. Once I saw that report I asked Dorset Police to immediately review their policy. I am pleased that they are now doing so and that the NPCC have withdrawn their original guidance. I remain of the view that such searches should only be undertaken by an officer or designated member of staff of the same biological/birth sex. The conflation of sex and gender in this area is problematic, as one cannot change their biological sex, no matter how much medical intervention there may be.

1. My conversations on this matter are continuing with the Chief Constable and other senior staff whilst we await new guidance from the NPCC. It would be inappropriate of me to speculate on what this new guidance might be at this stage, as I have not received any indication of what this might look like. I will continue to monitor this situation and what this means for Dorset Police and women in custody.

If you have any further questions on this or any other topic please get in touch.

Kind regards
Dave
David Sidwick
Your Local Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner Candidate"

I've had one acknowledgement from the Lib Dem candidate who said they will come back to me. Nothing from Labour or Conservative so far.

@Needmoresleep and everyone. My DH brought up voting for this this morning, and asked me my opinion of our local candidates. Luckily I remembered this thread! We're in the middle of a stressful house move and my brain is fried to a cinder, but I want to do this justice (after move we will be in the same area, same PCC), so on my list this morning is to email our candidates, but I don't want to make a massively complex inquisition about it both for my own sake and in the hopes of getting responses.
So can anyone tell me what a key or couple of key questions are to get to the heart of it?
What about 'Where do you stand on Stonewall's influence in the police?' And 'Do you believe crimes statistics should be recorded by natal sex rather than acquired gender?'
Is that enough do you think?
All ideas welcomed. TIA.

If it helps, WRN have tweeted three key questions to ask.

Fantastic that's exactly what I need, huge thanks.

Same @Dumbledoreslemonsherbets

Also in Greater Manchester. I'd never heard of Kate Green, but that doesn't sound great.

Kate green was MP for Stretford and Urmston. She resigned about 18 months ago, and Andy Burnham gave her the job.

This would be so helpful - could someone please screen shot the three questions for those of us not on TwiX??

The questions are:

1. Will you ensure that women are searched only by female police officers ?
2. Will you ensure that all crime data will be recorded by sex, not gender ?
3. Will you ensure that sex,not gender will be in all force policies and practices ?

Thanks for doing this.
The original questions are formatted with quotation marks round the word 'gender' in questions 2 and 3, just thought it's worth adding this as it does make the point that 'gender' is a social construct.
@JoyousAsOtters just tagging you to make sure you see the questions! (And what a fabulous name.)

Shit.

I don’t want to have to vote Tory.

where’s binface when you need him!?

Thanks for this, a reminder to me to email the candidates. I found them via this website

https://choosemypcc.org.uk/