All money seized from criminals should given back to the community affected

In Bradford, deprived young people are now being provided with the equipment they need to participate in sport and divert them away from antisocial behaviour; in Leeds, women and their families, especially girls from a South Asian background, have improved access to support networks and other services; and in Wakefield, young people are now able to access education workshops to help them make positive choices in their lives.

These projects and many like them will be soon up and running across West Yorkshire after the first round of the new Safer Communities Fund saw grants awarded to 45 successful bidders. These grants invest the recovered proceeds of crime back into the communities that suffered in the first place. 50 per cent of the total amount of the proceeds of crime that get returned to the police from the Treasury have gone into the fund.

Thanks to the hard work of the police and partners, it is hoped over half a million pounds will be available this year, with the same amount made available for West Yorkshire police to invest in police operations and crime prevention in our communities.

Widely considered to be an innovative piece of legislation, the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) was introduced by a Labour government in 2002. It gives police the powers to seize and confiscate cash and property, takes the financial incentive out of criminal behaviour and enables the criminal justice system to work more effectively – in particular to tackle serious and organised crime.

Currently, however, only half of the money recovered here comes back to West Yorkshire with the Treasury keeping the other half to invest in a way that is not always entirely clear. The ill-gotten gains recovered from criminals who profit from causing serious harm to our communities should not, in my view, be seen to belong to the state but as the rightful property of all those victims and witnesses whose lives have been blighted by crime. It should be spent in an open, transparent and accountable way.

I have long been campaigning for all of the money seized and confiscated here to be spent here and 85 per cent of local people agree. Thousands have signed my petitions calling on the government to give us all our money back. In these times of unprecedented cuts to our public services – in West Yorkshire, the police budget is being cut by almost a third – it would be a welcome boost to those working hard in our communities keeping people safe.

Updating the legislation would mean we could go further. By granting royal assent to Part 5 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009, financial investigators and constables would be given increased powers to search premises, people and vehicles and the power to seize and retain property in relation to a confiscation investigation.

The amount of time that offenders have to pay confiscation orders should be reduced; and the legislation needs changing to allow money that is held in bank accounts to be classed as cash under POCA, to give enforcement agencies the power to seize or confiscate these funds with a confiscation order. In West Yorkshire it is estimated that more than one million is currently sitting inaccessible in the bank accounts of criminals.

There were 236 individuals and organisations that bid into the Safer Communities Fund in the first quarter. It would have been fantastic to be able to fund all the projects so that we could do more to divert our young people away from crime and antisocial behaviour and improve their life chances. That’s why I will continue to campaign to get all of our money back, working with the government to update the legislation so that we can invest all the money seized here in preventing crime, instead of picking up the pieces.

Mark Burns Williamson is the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire. This article was originally published in ‘Letting in the Light’, the Fabian Society’s latest policy report. Read it online here.