Home secretary Priti Patel wants criminals to ‘feel terror’
New home secretary Priti Patel wants criminals to “literally feel terror” at the prospect of breaking the law.
Patel said she wants to “empower” the police and put more officers on the streets, but distanced herself from previous comments supporting the death penalty.
Read more: Johnson to begin recruiting 20,000 new police officers in next few weeks
“The Conservative Party is the party of law and order,” Patel told the Daily Mail.
Last week she and Prime Minister Boris johnson announced that the recruitment of 20,000 more police officers in England and Wales was to get under way in a matter of weeks.
They will replace the 20,000 lost since the Conservatives took power in 2010.
“I’ve always felt the Conservative Party is the party of the police and police officers,” she said.
“Quite frankly, with more police officers out there and greater police presence, I want [criminals] to literally feel terror at the thought of committing offences.”
She added: “My focus now is restating our commitment to law and order and restating our commitment to the people on the front line, the police.
“The key thing is that we empower them to stop criminality.”
When asked about her views on capital punishment, she said: “I have never said I’m an active supporter of it and [it] is constantly taken out of context.”
She previously told the BBC in 2011 that she “would actually support the reintroduction of capital punishment”.
“We have a criminal justice system that continuously fails in this country,” she said at the time. “People who have committed the most abhorrent crimes in society, go to prison and then are released to go out into the community to then re-offend.
“On that basis alone I would actually support the reintroduction of capital punishment to serve as a deterrent.”
Patel was elected as MP for Witham in 2010 and previously held ministerial positions at the Treasury and department for work and pensions, before being promoted to international development secretary.
Read more: Boris Johnson visits damaged Derbyshire dam as storms expected
She was relieved from that role, though, after holding unauthorised talks with Israeli officials in 2017.
She has since been on the backbenches and was a supporter of Johnson’s campaign to become Prime Minister.