KNIFE CRIME

luke warm Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 05:32:13 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Three more teenagers killed



One week into a new year and already three teenagers have been stabbed to death and several more injured.

The failure of our Government to control violent crime amounts to monumental ineptitude.  They have let the country down on so many different occasions, but this failure is nothing more than criminal incompetence.

The trouble is every right thinking person in the country can see the most obvious solutions which could very easily be initiated.  These may not eliminate the problem but would certainly ease it.

1. Thousands more police on the streets.
2. Enforce stop and search rigourously.
3. Ten year minimum jail sentence for anyone found carrying a knife.
4. Twenty year minimum jail sentence for anyone found carrying a gun.
5.  Life (and that means life) for any murderer.
And finally, and most obvious to anyone with the tiniest amount of brain......
6.  BUILD MORE PRISONS.

Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime is the biggest joke of the century.

Our Prime Minister and all his Cabinet should hang their heads in shame.

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KNIFE CRIME | 12 comments (12 topical)

Re: KNIFE CRIME (#1)

by swatantra on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 06:03:24 PM GMT

Some good suggestions luke, but you forgotten the most important ingredient in all this, the community.
All the drastic solutions you suggest won't work unless the community have the will to tackle the gangs, the drug dealers the pimps on their doorstep. At the moment they're holding back, expecting the police to do the dirty work for them. The community have to take responsbility.


Re: KNIFE CRIME (#2)

by bishophill on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 07:47:44 PM GMT

But who on earth is going to tackle the gangs? The gangs are all armed to the teeth, but us law-abiding folks aren't. You can take up a position that the police do law enforcement on their own (and we have a disarmed population) or you can demand that ordinary people have a role to play in law enforcement (and you rearm them).

To my mind, the approach of disarming the law-abiding has failed. We need to rewind about a hundred years.


[ Parent ]

Re: KNIFE CRIME (#3)

by swatantra on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 08:51:56 PM GMT

I'm not advocating arming the populace or vigilantes patrolling the streets, but the passing off information, the grassing on sons, husbands, boyfriends. The community know full well who is responsible but they are wasting police time by not co-operating earlier in the investigation. We also want intelligence fed to the police well in advance so that the police can prevent these incidents occuring in the first place. Co-operation with the law is the only way to stamp out this type of crime.  


[ Parent ]

Re: KNIFE CRIME (#4)

by bishophill on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 09:14:58 PM GMT

The problem is that the police tend to know who the perps are, but can't find anyone willing to testify in court, because everyone is frightened of retribution from the gangs who, as I've noted above, are armed whereas the law-abiding witness is not.

Would you testify in these circumstances? 


[ Parent ]

Re: KNIFE CRIME (#5)

by swatantra on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 09:20:09 PM GMT

This is what I'm saying, the community have got to stand as one and confront the yobs, the drug dealers and the pimps and drive them out. And it doesn't require arming them. Somebody has to make a stand, at some time, otherwise they'll never solve the problem. And the police can provide protection for witnesses.


[ Parent ]

Re: KNIFE CRIME (#6)

by bishophill on Sat Jan 05, 2008 at 09:47:54 PM GMT

I know what you are saying. I just don't think that it's realistic. There will never be enough resources to provide round the clock protection to anything but a tiny fraction of witnesses in the highest profile cases. (see for example <a href="http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library/documents-w7/spri-08.htm">this </a>report which shows that in very violent Strathclyde, the witness protection unit had dealt with a total of 27 cases. It's not clear if over what period this is, but whichever way you look at it, it's a drop in the ocean).

If it's thuggery or small-time drug dealing you're on your own as far as the police are concerned. 


[ Parent ]

Re: KNIFE CRIME (#7)

by alexhilton on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 04:47:17 AM GMT

I entirely disagree with you and my first thought, if i may be forgiven, is that you are not particularly Labour in any sense that I recognise. You are talking up Tory propaganda.
"Tough on crime, tough of the causes of crime" still works as a guide - my only concession to you would be that we have not gone nearly far enough on the causes side.
According to the independent British Crime Survey, violent crime is down by 34% since 1997. But in 1997, they didn't have rolling 24-hour TV news media with an enormous hunger for stories to publicise. If you think things are bad here, can you name one single state in the USA where three similar stabbings would make the state-wide news?
but on your points specifically...
1. Thousands more police on the streets.
We already have 14,000 extra police and measures in place or planned to ensure their time is better used.
2. Enforce stop and search rigourously.
It is enforced rigorously. You don't get an option when you get stopped and searched. Or are you suggesting the number of S&Ss should increase? because they have done massively since the London bombings. Or are you suggesting they should "profile" young black boys and men, in which you really are in the wrong place.
3. Ten year minimum jail sentence for anyone found carrying a knife.
So more for carrying a knife than raping someone? No-way. Sentencing guidelines are enormously difficult to balance but putting someone in prison for ten years for something they see as easily justified or even necessary just divorces them for life from the concept of respect for the law. I'm from East London and there was a time when I was a stupid teenager when I thought it was necessary to carry a knife. Talk to some of these kids. They feel it's for their own protection and not an option. Criminalising them in the first instance won't help.
4. Twenty year minimum jail sentence for anyone found carrying a gun.
So a tougher sentence for carrying a gun than sexually assaulting a child? I think your priorities are a bit off.
5.  Life (and that means life) for any murderer.
Life does mean life for the most dangerous criminals - "At her Majesty's pleasure" is the term. There are some truly evil and dangerous people in prison who will never be released - but you think they should have a sentence no greater than a woman who murders the husband who constantly beat her over 15 years? The vast majority of avoidable deaths in this country are road deaths. It would be perverse to have an enormous gulf between the sentence of a road killer and a knife killer - you would drive premeditated murderers onto the roads.
And finally, and most obvious to anyone with the tiniest amount of brain......
6.  BUILD MORE PRISONS.
Prisons are necessary but they criminalise people. We should not be keeping people inside any longer than it takes to protect the public, rehabilitate the offender, deter others and arguably, apply some for of abstract punishment. People develop drug habits in prison. People get raped in prison. People commit suicide in prison. And they are people. This Daily Mail attitude that there are normal people from "hard working families" and there are criminals in some dark underground is nonsense. We all have the capacity to commit all sorts or crimes and an "us and them" attitude towards criminals is truly divisive and guaranteed to drive a need for prison places. The difference between us and them is luck, circumstance, opportunity, educational attainment, mental illness, drug addiction and occasionally but rarely, some proper badness. Continuing to criminalise increasing numbers of people is not sustainable in the long term because you inevitably build communities where imprisonment becomes a fact of life rather than a deterrent.
However, that said, I would like to see a greater sentencing deterrent for supplying arms to minors. But then I'd also like to see tough sentencing for corporate manslaughter and I'd like to see having sex with a prostitute under the age of 20 or under the influence of drugs or alcohol to be classed as rape.
This may seem like a general rant but I happen to think our criminal justice system is antiquated, inefficient and has lost site of its aims due to the organic nature of its development over centuries. I believe if we spent a couple of years asking people what is the balance of purposes of sentencing between retribution, rehabilitation, restoration and other aims - and if we asked people to tell us what crimes are worse than others, what should and should not be legal - we might actually come up with a system from scratch that is better than the one we have.


Re: KNIFE CRIME (#12)

by bishophill on Mon Jan 07, 2008 at 01:28:43 PM GMT

Is the British Crime Survey actually independent? According to this it's an "in-home survey run by the Home Office". And Home Office statistics are officially "not fit for purpose" IIRC.


[ Parent ]

Re: KNIFE CRIME (#8)

by grayee on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 01:13:37 PM GMT

Good stuff Alex, People seem to have forgotten the "tough on the cause of crime" bit lately.  Keep on ranting.


Re: KNIFE CRIME (#9)

by MarkHanson on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 01:27:56 PM GMT

Alex - that's an excellently written argument as to why there needs to be far more done on 'causes' and why we need to not get carried away by Daily mail-esque screaming about the state of Britain today. The fact is that we have the most competitive media market in the world and what sells is fear and greed, hence the papers are full of both and the Daily Mail sells most of all.


However it is a mistake made by the party so often in the past to try and rationalise crime when what's needed, in addition to stronger communities and better life chances for all, is the feeling in certain localities that the law is a deterrent and more importantly that it will be enforced. As well as disaffection and alienation, the prospect of getting caught and what will happen to you after that plays a huge part in whether you will commit crime.


The function of the justice system is also to reassure society as a whole that it's values are shared and protected and that if they should have to come into contact with the justice system they will be responded to and protected.  


I spoke to a former Police Minister at conference recently and he felt the police were far too unresponsive to the needs of the community, both in terms of the way they work and the way they interact with a citizen, who may not be ringing 999 about a rape or armed robbery, is still ringing about a the kind of anti-social behaviour that makes them totally miserable. If that is not responded to then they feel cut adrift from justice and the perpetrator feels more untouchable and will eventually graduate to the kinds of crime that will warrant a more serious sentence.


So we need to address that particular crime with better youth facilities and intervention in the family but we also need to reassure ordinary citizens in our heartlands that we want the justice system to protect them.


And if we want prison to rehabilitate then we have to make more space and I'm afraid the only politically acceptable way of doing that is to...er build more. Sorry:)


Re: KNIFE CRIME (#10)

by jkitleft on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 08:40:14 PM GMT

I sense the seventh arguement will be something involving national service......


Look, everyone has access to a knife. Everyone. But not all people have access to guns. And Alex is right in saying that this would not make news in America. 30,000. Shot dead in America. Every year. The problem there, as with most crime, is social cohesion. However, I admit this axiom cannot be applied to he whole scenario. There are some people who are just sadists, and their crimes cannot be explained away by saying they played Grand Theft Auto, or because of poverty. What the key part of this equation is, that although not the single reason, it it the most contributing factor to crime, and that poverty is like the bottom piece of a Jenga tower. You pull it out, and crime comes down. Poverty won't completely go away, nor will crime completely go away. But it will come down


Re: KNIFE CRIME (#11)

by RedRooster on Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 09:37:02 PM GMT

So, is there a way to recommend not the original post, but all the fantastic comments underneath it?  Enough with the superlative deconstruction of Tory crime arguments Alex, we need more web functionality.


KNIFE CRIME | 12 comments (12 topical)