Nov 13th, 2012

Police and Crime Commissioner Elections: Can you help?

By [email protected]

** UPDATE ** Thanks to the hard work of thousands of 38 Degrees members we’ve got responses from nearly every candidate. Click here to see them and share with your friends and family.

In a few days private security companies like G4S could move one step closer to taking over large parts of our police service. This Thursday new police and crime commissioners are being elected. Proposals to privatise big bits of local police services could be one of the first things on their desks.

Privatising the police should be a matter of huge public concern – particularly after the G4S Olympics fiasco. But the police elections are incredibly low-key. Pro-privatisation candidates could sneak in under the radar. There’s a risk voters could only find out plans to privatise their local police service when it’s too late to stop them.

Together we can help voters find out in time about plans to privatise our police. If we each ask our local candidates where they stand on privatisation, we can build up a national picture. Then on the day of the election we can spread this information far and wide. We can sound the alarm about pro-privatisation candidates and give voters the info they need to choose who to vote for.

Can you take a few minutes to help gather the information? Due to the fantastic effort of thousands of 38 Degrees members, we’ve already got information about most candidates, but there are still a few missing. There’s a list at the bottom of this blog. If these are your local candidates, can you email them and ask them where they stand on privatising the police?

If you’re stuck, here are a couple of the questions you could include:

Can you promise not to privatise our local police services?

Will you allow companies like G4S to get involved in the running of our local police?

Do you have any connection to companies that might be interested in police contracts?

Once you’ve got a reply, please copy it into an email so it can be added into a database. That way we can publicise the responses far and wide next week.

38 Degrees members have voted to make it a priority to oppose plans to privatise the police. So let’s get our campaign going, and stand up for policing focused on protecting the public rather than on profits.

Police and Crime Commissioner Candidates we don’t have information on yet: