WRONG APPROACH TO KNIFE CRIME

The Home Office today announced the introduction of Knife Crime Prevention Orders for children as young as 12. Sajid Javid claims they are an important tool for the police in tackling the “epidemic” of knife crime – very interesting terminology, to which we will return later. One restriction which has attracted a lot of press attention is the suggestion that they could be used to restrict children’s communication on social media. The issue of how police officers will enforce this with tech savvy teens is not addressed.

Of course the police already have an impressive tool in tackling crime – it’s called the law. Carrying a knife is illegal and already carries an extensive set of penalties. Children can be imprisoned for a second incidence of possession of a bladed article. If the threat of prison is not operating as a deterrent, is adding civil orders, which have so conspicuously failed to be effective in tackling anti-social behaviour and gangs in the past, going to do any better? It certainly appears as though Sajid Javid wants to be seen to be Doing Something about the increasing levels of knife violence, involving younger and younger children on our streets. Doing Something usually involves a punitive response, as though children are ever or could ever be punished into changing behaviour.

This week saw the tragic death of Nedim Bilgin, stabbed to death after a Youth Offending Service appointment. A local councillor cited gang tensions as a contributory factor in local violence, and we know that many children are heavily involved in the drugs trade and County Lines activity. When you are in fear of serious physical and sexual violence, against yourself and your family at the hands of gang ‘olders’, is a Prevention Order really going to deter children from trying to protect themselves? Their fear is real, and well founded. Our children are at risk.

Civil orders have been used before, as a reaction to issues which attract great public attention. ASBOs were the first, and I vividly recall the case of a young man in east London who was given a list of 27 restrictions, which included not associating with 32 named individuals – his entire friendship group in fact; not being in a group of more than three people; not drinking any alcohol. His ASBO was LIFELONG. With laughable inevitability, he breached it, and was imprisoned on several occasions for behaviour such as sitting upstairs on a bus, or talking to his friend. Yes, he had a history of offending. But he had been given criminal justice responses for that behaviour, the ASBO was imposed in addition to court orders. And he was a child. He had no hope of complying with these restrictions, and only became free of them when he committed suicide. The more recent iteration of civil orders for children included the CBO, which saw a child in inner London receive a custodial sentence for visiting his mother. Lessons have not been learned.

The question we should, as a society, be asking is why are our children so scared on the streets and in their schools that they resort to carrying knives for their protection? What is life like for them out there, that this level of fear attends their daily routine? This is a child safeguarding issue, and it is totally inappropriate to apply a criminal justice response. Middle class parents leave the inner cities to find places for their children where they can walk to school without fear. Poorer families do not have that option, and it is poor and Black children who are disproportionately affected by crime, and who will be affected by these punitive measures.

As well as a safeguarding issue, knife crime is often framed as a public health issue – including by Sajid Javid himself. His use of “epidemic” is interesting in this context; if he believes that violence should be treated in the way we would a contagious disease, then punishing individual children is not going to get results. The Glasgow style approach, which tackles at the factors which allow violence to grow, such as poverty and school exclusion, is hard and requires resources and commitment. It also plays less well with the Tory voting public. Rather than blaming the children who are caught up in this, Mr Javid, how about taking the harder route, and making a real change? That really would be Doing Something.