In a wide-ranging discussion at the Union last Monday night about the role of policing in a liberal democracy, a high-profile panel sharply criticized Labour government’s record on crime, calling it “catastrophic” and “paranoid”.

The panel, which consisted of Shami Chakrabarti, director of prominent pressure group Liberty, Sir Ken Macdonald, former Director of Public Prosecutions, Brian Paddick, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Service, and Dr Robert Reiner, Professor of Criminology at the London School of Economics, was unanimous in agreeing that Labour had vastly expanded the authority of the law, at the expense of privacy and civil liberties.

“There has been a hyper-inflation of the extent of the law,” said Sir Ken, noting that since 1997 nearly three thousand new criminal offences had been added to the legal system, many of them for minor and inconsequential incidents. He attributed this rise to New Labour’s attempt to appear tough on crime, and accused the government of “triangulating”.

Paddick, who as Police Commander stirred controversy for instructing his officers to overlook minor drug offences, argued that the government’s policy of pursuing convictions for petty crimes and misconduct has meant that bigger crimes continue to go unpunished. Professor Reiner agreed with this analysis, adding further that the policy has resulted in the underlying causes of crime, such as poverty and inequality, to be ignored.

The biggest applause of the evening, however, was reserved for Chakrabarti who argued that over-policing can create a “dangerous illusion of a risk-free society, which infantilizes a population.” She explained that she saw democracy as “a machine that needs both moving parts and fixed parts.” Ultimately, she likened prosecutors and police officers to the fixed parts of the machinery, noting their essential role, and urged them to follow the rule of law.

The forum was the brainchild of James Counsell, undergraduate at Sidney Sussex College and Director of Publicity at the Union. Counsell’s interest in the topic was sparked by his firsthand experiences this year at the G20 protests in London, where he was kettled for eight hours, without access to food, water, or toilet facilities, while frequently being beaten and charged.

According to Counsell, the forum was a chance to show that “the contentions we face in a liberal society, in which figures of authority occasionally act with abusive impunity, are not the concerns of an extreme minority, but should be an active concern for everybody.”