Knife Ownership

Knife Crime; Britain’s Shame
By A. Millar
Created 2008-07-03 23:36
Violent crime has doubled since Labour came to power a decade ago. Stabbings and assault in Britain are now common, if not daily occurrences; at night city centers are generally regarded as no-go areas; “feral” youths and gangs loitering the streets – often drunk on cheap alcohol – make many people too afraid to go for a walk on a summer evening.

Every week yields up plenty of reasons why people have good reason to be scared in modern Britain. On Saturday evening 60-year old Stan Dixon, a former soldier, was attacked by youths, for asking them not to swear in front of a woman. He died yesterday in hospital. 17 teenagers have been murdered in London alone this year. The latest victim, 16 year-old Ben Kinsella, was killed on Sunday night. On Tuesday Dee Willis, a 28 year-old woman, was stabbed to death by a female attacker in south-east London. Today, the country woke up to reports of the extremely brutal and apparently motiveless murder of two French exchange students, Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez (both 23). The two men had been playing computer games at Mr. Bonomo’s apartment in New Cross, south-east London, on Sunday night, when they were attacked, gagged, tortured (suffering nearly 250 stab wounds between them), and their bodies set on fire.

The police are no longer beloved by the public, it is sad to say. Political correctness and bureaucratic paperwork has meant that officers go for soft targets (including such trivial things as allegedly dropping an apple core), while ignoring serious crime, such as burglary. This week, however, there was a brief spark of hope that things were beginning to turn around. Metropolitan police chief Sir Ian Blair and London mayor Boris Johnson held a joint press conference, announcing that over a thousand arrests had been made, and 538 knives confiscated from youths, in a recent police initiative. Yet, a slap in the face to this hard work, and, indeed, to the general public, the Sentencing Guidelines Council has issued new sentencing guidelines that will mean anyone found guilty of possessing a knife will face only a small fine – no deterrent whatsoever.

The British are not known for protesting. But, today, with a lack of faith in the authorities, a grassroots movement against violence is beginning to emerge. Families of victims of violent crime are making themselves visible, and heard. Yesterday a march was led by the sister of Ben Kinsella, in response to his murder, calling for an end to the epidemic of violence.

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From The Times
July 5, 2008
Knife crime to replace terror as police priority
Knives seized by police

(Lewis Whyld/PA)

500 knives were seized during Scotland Yard's Operation Blunt
Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent

Knife crime has overtaken terrorism as the No 1 priority for the Metropolitan Police, one of Britain’s most senior officers said yesterday.

Deputy Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson announced the form-ation of a special knife-crime unit to address the recent spate of fatal stabbings in London as he admitted that moves to stop teenagers carrying weapons were not working.

The unit, featuring specialist officers from across the capital, will target known gang members and their associates who may be carrying or supplying knives. It will also conduct random searches.

Sir Paul’s announcement came after a 16-year-old boy became the eighteenth teenager to die a violent death in the capital this year. There were 26 youth murders in 2007.

Shakilus Townsend called out for his mother as he lay dying in a street in Thornton Heath, South London, on Thursday. He was ambushed by masked teenage boys who attacked him with a baseball bat and a knife with a 30cm blade. A young girl with the gang watched his murder.

In an attempt to stem the growing number of young deaths, senior police in the capital have been told to divert officers from other tasks to focus on tackling knife crime. Speaking at a Metropolitan Police Association co-ordination and policing committee meeting yesterday, Sir Paul said: “These measures reflect that tackling knife crime is the No 1 priority for the Met at this time.”

Earlier this year, Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, had said that only terrorism posed a greater threat than youth violence to London.

Kit Malthouse, Deputy Mayor for Policing, said he was extremely pleased that the police were focusing on the issue. In May the Metropolitan Police launched Operation Blunt 2, a high-profile initiative to tackle knife crime that involved taking airport-style metal detectors and using special powers to search youths for knives within high-risk areas.

Since then 27,000 people have been searched, 1,200 arrested and 500 knives seized. Of those arrested, 95 per cent have since been charged with weapons offences.

Last Sunday Ben Kinsella, 16, died after being stabbed “numerous times” having apparently become caught up in an argument that spilt out of a pub in Islington, North London. His death prompted family and friends to stage a demonstration, urging young people to shun the knife culture.

Sir Paul said: “Sadly, in recent days, more young people have lost their lives to knife crime. This is not tolerable and clearly the message is not getting through.”

The dedicated 75-strong task force will be made up of officers from the Territorial Support Group, traffic and dog sections and specialist detectives.Cindy Butts, deputy chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, welcomed the initiative. “It would be wholly wrong if the Met had not responded to the further dreadful murders that have happened this week,” she said.

Police have tried several approaches to reach out to youngsters involved in knife crime: persuasion, coercion and even shock tactics. In May, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced a £5 million package to tackle violent crime, with action to crack down on knives in hotspots across Britain. Every initiative has failed to stop the stabbings in the capital.

Ministers, the Mayor of London and senior policemen have all made it clear that they need the help of communities in London if they are to have greater success. Yesterday, Sir Paul again appealed for help.

“Everyone is being affected by what is going on and we all have to work together to get the message across that carrying knives has got to stop,” he said. “We need to broadcast the message quite simply: if you carry a knife, you are likely to be caught, you will be charged and you will be likely to go to prison.”

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From The Times
July 5, 2008
Stabbings, not sex, are the real facts of life
A message of Gandhi-like passivity turning hordes of docile potential victims into human cash machines
Janice Turner

How grim to be murdered outside Lidl. “Waitrose or M&S Simply Food at the very least,” quipped my dark-humoured friend. But from just beyond the police tape, Dee Willis's demise wasn't funny at all. Just a box of pink carnations beside the sticky brown stain and pathetic, blood-soaked tissue dropped by whoever vainly dabbed at the gash in her chest.

Dee was 28 and - so police believe - had been drinking all day before having the barney with a woman friend which, late at night, was terminally resolved with a knife, right under Lidl's stonking great CCTV camera. So not a teenage victim of gang violence, then. A “domestic". The interest of reporters outside her flat chilled. Next morning, a mile away, was the more thrilling prospect of tortured and murdered French exchange students.

By then Lidl had reopened. The pink flowers had gone, with no cellophaned shrine like those guaranteed to our younger dead. No Bebo tributes, tearful marches or mayoral addresses for Dee. At least, enjoying the novelty of being white and female, she sparked a few paragraphs. Unlike the Tunisian guy stabbed, three streets away and two nights earlier, over an unpaid £1.50 internet café bill.

It may not fit the prevailing narrative of wasted youth, but what does Dee Willis's death tell us? That bust-ups between boozed-up broads no longer end in hair-pulling or a chucked bottle? That on a night out, some women in South London routinely pack a blade? That perhaps because knife crime is escalating, there are those who feel it foolish not to carry one. And that life can be taken so casually on the next street to my friend's Georgian house, with its window boxes of red geraniums, funky Antony Gormley street furniture and overpriced cake shop.
Background

* Get youths in court before they stab

* Teenagers march in memory of Ben Kinsella

* Knife crime: police urge ‘proper sentences’

* Beef, bruv: the truth about gangs

The power of the knife is its banality. Guns are illegal (in most circumstances), serial-numbered, maybe not hard to obtain in London or Manchester, but you have to know the go-to guy. Guns are good for only one thing. But how can you legislate against knives when, for every 528 seized by Operation Blunt2, there are a gazillion more in kitchen drawers? After amnesties, sabres and machetes, switchblades and flick-knives are displayed in triumph. Yet you can kill with a £3 fruit parer from Sainsbury's.

Knives have some ancient, hunter-gatherer power over boys. My sons begged and wheedled until they were given Swiss Army penknives so that they could whittle sticks on holiday like their dad. I winced throughout the latest Indiana Jones movie at the young hero - Indie's son - whose bravery and dash is manifested in his brilliance with a blade. Knives make boys feel capable, resourceful, manly and, when backed into a corner, safe.

That is what torments the London parent, particularly those with teenage (or, in my case, nearly-teen) boys. Is this media spotlight on knife culture fuelling a fashion, just as news reports created the “happy slapping” craze? If so, how can we ever let our sons leave the house?

Down at the Willis murder scene, the David Mitchell lookalike from the Daily Mail said to me: “Times readers don't get stabbed.” He added that kids have always had their stuff nicked by meaner kids; he had never got over someone lifting his Munchman console.

When I recall my own moderately rough school - the cries of “scrap on!” outside the gates, the mean girls who'd thump hard, being shoved once down some concrete steps - I realise that the boundaries between playground argy-bargy, bullying and violence have shifted. Now you are classified a bully if you send a former mate to Coventry; a bundle on the bus is assault. Hovering above the normal rufty-tufty is the paranoid and ever-vigilant modern parent.

Now mayor Boris has succumbed to the prevailing parental mood with his statement this week that he'd tell his own four children to pass by any trouble. No doubt he is shaken by the Ben Kinsella stabbing, a half mile from his Barnsbury villa in North London. His neighbourhood shares my own's unsettling mixture of smuggery and lurking violence.

We simply cannot endure any risk to our children. So we tell them - as the police advise - to surrender everything they have to anyone who asks for it. Take my mobile phone, my cash, my Oyster card, just don't kill me.

A West London friend was horrified when her son repelled a bigger boy who demanded his phone on the bus with an old-fashioned “p*** off”. Fighting back is seen as madness. Kids wandering around in iPod earphones - particularly in private school uniforms - are accused of inspiring crimes of envy. (Although few kids these days appear particularly gadget-deprived.) A message of Gandhi-like passivity is preached, so, surely, the villains realise that hordes of docile potential victims can be tapped like human cash machines.

Not that the white-flag approach helped my friend's son when he caught the wrong bus and ended up on a dark street a mile from home. He coughed up his stuff, but they beat him anyway. The police told his mother that they'd heard Peckham gang members were wearing white bandanas until they earn the right to wear red ones by committing a stabbing. Urban myth or chilling craze? Who can tell? Either way my friend, the coolest mum I know about London's dangers, now plans to drive her children around “until they're at least 35”.

Which is what you see every Saturday night in London's high streets, a traffic jam of parents collecting teenagers from bars. Better a stint as minicab driver than a terrified night's wait while your son negotiates the place where alcohol, anger and knife crime meet. We always drive our 6ft boy babysitter back to his house round the corner, a lift I'd have been embarrassed to accept at 17. At least we have the cars and time to protect our kids, unlike the frontline mothers waiting for their sons to walk back alone through gang-riddled estates.

Last week, walking through the flats behind our house, my ten-year-old asked nervously: “Have you ever been mugged, Mum?” No. “Has Dad?” No. I found myself telling him that street crime is rare, he needn't be worried, most people won't harm him. I don't need to tell him yet that your first teenage mugging in London is almost a rite of passage, which - more than any sex education lecture - feels like the real facts of life.

29th December 2008 - New Knife Crime Statistics have today been released by the Conservative Party

As reported on UK National TV News Channels The Conservative Party have today released new details of fatal stabbing statistics based on information apparently obtained from the police in England and Wales under the Freedom of Information Act.

The new figures indicate that in the year 2007-8 there were some 277 deaths from stabbings in England & Wales alone (the highest recorded figure for 30 years). This represents an average death toll as a direct result of stabbings of over 5 for every week of the year!

In an immediate response, the government have challenged the figures which they state they believe to be misleading as the figures may not be confined to fatal stabbings with knives alone!

Obviously, if the newly released figures are correct, despite claims by the government to have been tough on knife crime during their lengthy period in office, it is estimated that knife crime has increased by around 38%? - a figure with which they also take issue.

So is Knife Crime in the UK "Up" or "Down"?
- well frankly given that politicians (sadly across all political parties) seldom offer a concise and straight answer to any question, it's hard to know.

When listening to the governments carefully worded response to any hint of an escalation in UK knife crime however, time and again, the answer somehow seems to skirt the core of the question. The response normally includes a statement about some tough new measures "about to be introduced" to make our streets safer and some form of comment to the effect that overall violent crime is down! ...the cynical amongst you could however be forgiven for wondering if even that is true, or if that itself could be anything to do with how crimes are classified and which are actually recorded.

When it comes to reducing knife and gun crime, patently, weapons amnesties and lightweight community service sentences for those caught carrying a weapon are having little real effect on the problem. In fact there appears to be a growing anger and resentment amongst the general public at the governments continued commitment to tough words but limp action.

Those dealing with the issues on the ground within the community have long been saying that the growing weapons culture and the easy willingness to use them is a symptom of deep rooted problems in our society. Poverty, lack of opportunity, the "must have now" culture (fuelled by the easy access to credit - even to those unable to afford it), the growing divide between the rich and poor, the break down of family values and discipline, are just some of the issues which probably have to be tackled if we are really going to solve the problem. Such a cultural change may take a generation or two to achieve, but unless we get started, things are likely to get a lot worse before they get better.







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July 2008 - Statistics, Statistics, Statistics

Its that time of year again when the definitive review of crime in the UK is published in the form of the "British Crime Survey" (BCS) and the separate "Police Recorded Crime Statistics" (PRCS).

Do the results help? - well frankly, not a lot, as the results are as wildly incompatible as those of previous years. Take knife crime for example; based on the PRCS report, around 22,000 incidents were recorded, however based on the BCS survey, the figure is estimated at around 130,000 incidents ...a variation of a mere 108,000 between the two results!

Inevitably, both figures are inaccurate, as it is widely recognised that there are shortcomings with the compilation of both sets of figures, i.e.;

PRCS; many incidents are simply never reported to the police (some estimate that as many as 4 out of every 5 incidents go unreported), and are therefore not included in the reported crime statistics.

BCS; these figures are derived from questioning a representative sample of UK residents (around 47,000 people were interviewed for the latest survey), and then extrapolating the findings to a population of around 60 million residents! Given that most knife crime occurs in definable inner city areas, there must be enormous scope for error when using an up-scaling factor of around 1,200 : 1, ...in addition to which, no one under the age of 16 was interviewed, even though it is recognised that many knife incidents involve youths in their very early teens!

I think many would disagree that violent crime has "doubled" since Labour came to power; Home Office and other statistics actually show a decline in violent crime. But few would disagree that there is now a growing knife culture in the UK, something that has spread from the gangs in London to a nationwide trend. Even before this trend there have been knives on the street; I was mugged at knifepoint eight years ago. But the traditional drunken brawls we've always had obviously take on a new dimension if someone is slashing around a blade. The police are under massive pressure to crack down on it. Best of luck to them - they'll need it.

Steve
I am sorry you had to be a victim of a knife attack. No one should fear simply walking about and enjoying their daily life.

Kids here in the states do the same thing. Box cutters, long knives, razor knives - whatever they can get their hands on. That and ball-peen hammers are also popular items to carry in a backpack, along with wood chisels. Crafty little bastards.

"Gun control is is a tight group."

If you were allowed to have a CWP ( a concealed weapons permit), oh wait the UK outlawed gun ownership years ago, now I guess if they outlaw knifes, people will be mugging people with cricket paddles. This is problem with outlawing self defense weapons, only the criminals then have weapons.

Kids wandering around in iPod earphones - particularly in private school uniforms - are accused of inspiring crimes of envy. (Although few kids these days appear particularly gadget-deprived.) A message of Gandhi-like passivity is preached, so, surely, the villains realise that hordes of docile potential victims can be tapped like human cash machines.

Ah, another gem from the left wing Labour Party. More insane logic from more of the "left's leading thinkers" as Steve64B put it in another post. At least the fox population is safe, Thank God!

I hate to say it but there is a benefit in allowing people to legally carry concealed hand guns and that is the thugs are less likely to attack the typical victim.

alabbasi Wrote:

....SSJ, where do you get your graphs?

They grow in my garden...

.......then I should take them with a grain of salt?

A dash of pepper too. It aids digestion of the data.

Seriously, it is a well-established fact that Blair ditched traditional old Labour values and brought "New Labour" kicking and screaming and on a direct crash-course with the Tories. Today with David Cameron (Blair wannabe) at the controls, you'd be hard-pushed to tell the Conservatives and Labour apart.

Want left-wing scapegoats in the UK? Try the Greens or the Socialist Labour Party. No real support for either though.

...all I was hoping for was comparables to a political position I could relate to. I realise your right of center is left to us but is the graph you use for the UK the same as the graph used elsewhere?

No, I imagine they are completely different scales with completely arbitrary centres. I'd be interested in such a graph if anyone can find one.

So...how hard is it to get a CKP (concealed knife permit) in the U.K.? I'll bet that is what is coming for you...better get these knives "off the streets," by making everybody turn them in...and making it illegal for law-abiding citizens to carry a knife for protection.

I know this is an argument that goes around in circles...and rarely changes anybody's mind.

GT caretaker Wrote:

I carry a knife when I go backpacking.

I think SSJ is making that knife attack mugging up,..... the way I heard the story, he was the victim of a rapier wit, and a sharp tongue lashing............

Sharp wit? Sounds like a spoonerism to me. PS. The mugging was very real. As a result I now carry a couple of concealed flamethrowers up my sleeves for protection.

You mean you're not the body double for Edward Scissorhands?