The Prime Minister will be in the chair for a seminar at Ten Downing Street today which has been arranged as part of the campaign against crime. The emphasis will be on prevention of crime. Mrs Thatcher will be accompanied by Ministers and senior officials, and there will be representatives from industry, commerce, the trade unions, motor manufacturers, insurance companies and the police. Here's our home affairs correspondent, Chris Underwood: [end p1]
The government believe that prevention is the most effective area in the fight against crime and so the purpose of today's meeting is to look at ways to make life more difficult for the thief and the burglar. The first item on the agenda will be auto crime, stealing vehicles or taking property from them. Each year, 800-thousand police hours are spent investigating this crime. A crime that also costs the motorist 270-million pounds. Other subjects to be discussed will include burglary of homes and crimes in the workplace, but the most important issue is that of violent crime. The Home Secretary, Mr. Douglas Hurd, does not expect the meeting to provide any startling new answers, but he believes crime prevention is sufficiently important to merit the personal attention of the Prime Minister:
Hurd
We believe crime prevention has been a bit of a Cinderella. And 95 per cent of crime in this country is not violent. It's against property and although it's the violent crime that upsets people most. But we believe a lot of crime can be prevented, can be stopped before it happens. If people in industry, householders, trade unionists as well as the police join together to exploit all the different ideas which are now gaining ground.
In a statement today, Mrs. Thatcher said it is necessary to intensify the community's resistance to the criminal and to find new ways of preventing crime, for example, by building more anti-theft and burglary devices into products and buildings.