Police and Crime Commissioner elections

By Jochen Voss, on 2012-11-12

The Police and Crime Commissioner elections will take place on Thursday. The question is whom to vote for.

Some thoughts:

• To me it seems that the persons standing for election (mostly local councillors) may not be the right persons to supervise the police. Wouldn't this be a much better job for the independent police complaints commission or the chair of the police authority or similar? So I wish there was a none of the above option at the end of the list of candidates.
• I will be able to choose between The Labour Party Candidate, The Conservative Party Candidate, Independent and Liberal Democrats. I feel a bit uneasy about how this seems to go against the principle of separation of powers.

The candidates for Leeds are the following (summarised from the choose my PCC web page):

• Mark Burns-Williamson (labour).
  Until recently, he was the chair of the West Yorkshire police authority, which probably makes him qualified for the job as a PCC. He optimistically writes that he will stand against the £100m Government cuts of around 2000 police officers and staff in West Yorkshire, but I would be surprised if he succeeded in this.
• Geraldine Mary Carter (conservative).
  Geraldine has served on West Yorkshire Police Authority, whatever this means. She writes there are communities that the police feel unable to tackle crime in because they fear the consequences, and I wish she would tell us which communities she means by this (is this about gang crime? Muslims? Corrupt politicians?). Also, she writes victims should be able to decide the community punishment of offenders, possibly indicating that she favours revenge over rehabilitation? She will recruit 850 new Community Special Constables, but doesn't say how this will be funded. She uses all the conservative buzz-words from zero-tolerance to unnecessary red tape.
• Cedric Mark Christie (independent). Cedric seems to be a retired police officer. He writes I will chase the corrupt and incompetent out of office and I know the difference between right and wrong. I never allowed negative traits to influence my behaviour whilst serving you. He seems VERY focussed on bullying.
• Andrew Clive Glover Marchington (libdem).
  Among the four candidates, Andrew seems to have the least connection to the police. He uses the phrases reduce red tape, payback sentencing, but also reduce reoffending. He seems to have a stronger focus on domestic violence than the other candidates do.