London: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to cut crime by tackling drug misuse and using electronic tagging on more burglars after release.
The government is also proposing that every neighbourhood in England and Wales should have a named police officer for residents to contact. Mr Johnson said the government was setting out plans to back the police.
But the Police Federation, representing rank-and-file officers, said fighting crime needed greater investment.
Under the Beating Crime Plan, more burglars, robbers and thieves would have their location monitored with electronic tags 24 hours a day after leaving prison.
Alcohol tags – which are intended to detect from sweat if the wearer has been drinking – are to be trialled on prison leavers in Wales in an effort to reduce alcohol-related crime.
The document also says Project Adder – which targets drugs gangs, offers help to addicts and increases the use of drugs testing when arrests are made – will be expanded from five areas of England to 13.
The new areas covered will be Newcastle, Bristol, London’s Hackney and Tower Hamlets, Wakefield, Liverpool, Knowsley and Wirral.
The government argues that allocating a named officer to every neighbourhood of England and Wales will ensure persistent crime and anti-social behaviour is tackled, as they “know their area”.
Ministers are also removing rules introduced by former Prime Minister Theresa May which made it harder for officers to use their section 60 stop and search powers.
The powers allow officers to search people without reasonable suspicion in places where serious violence may occur.
BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford says the government believes limits on stop and search have held back efforts to tackle knife crime.
However, the easing of rules is not uncontroversial and will cause a lot of disquiet, he says.
Also as part of a trial, probation services in Wales will be able to require prisoners released on licence to wear ankle tags for up to a year to monitor the amount of alcohol in their sweat.
Probation officers will be able to impose the tags where drinking alcohol is believed to increase their likelihood of committing another crime.
Currently, courts can only require offenders serving community sentences to wear the tags for up to four months for crimes explicitly linked to alcohol.
Like the court-ordered tags, prisoners on release will not be required to wear them if they are dependent on alcohol because those offenders are often required to undergo treatment. BBC
