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Dealing With Knife Crime
A rise in knife crime by young people is gripping Britain. Rob Knox, an 18 year old actor with a part in the next Harry Potter film was the latest victim of the crime wave: He was stabbed to death outside a pub on Saturday night.
Even self-confessed "woolly liberals" find their "blood boiling" at the levels of violent crime on British streets. Bafflingly, the government appears to be powerless. Police Minister Tony McNulty told Sky News that "it was up to the public" to prevent knife crime: he said that "education and awareness" were solutions to the problem, and that parents must be aware of the dangers of youngsters carrying blades. "You will end up either dead or in jail if you persist in carrying a weapon", he said.
Melanie Philips reports:
"A senior member of the judiciary, Sir Igor Judge, has said knife crime has to be 'confronted and stopped' by severe sentences for possession of knives.
"Yet Sentencing Council guidelines say that the 'starting point' for those caught with knives should be a community order.
"But such community penalties result in an even worse rate of re- offending than prison sentences - and without the relief given to beleaguered communities while offenders are actually taken off the streets."
McNulty, however, ruled out what he called "knee-jerk legislation" in response to knife crime.
However, it would be a start if he and the government were able to use the legislation that already exists for crimes involving knives. The current maximum sentence for carrying a knife is two years; four if the knife is brought into school. Here's Stephen Pollard in The Times:
"In 2006, only nine of the 6,314 people convicted of carrying a knife were handed down a maximum sentence. Most were given a caution. And I would bet a small fortune on not one of those nine criminals - 0.14 per cent of those convicted - actually being made to serve the full sentence they were given.
"Despite the penalties available, the authorities treat this potentially deadly crime as an infringement of the law akin to pilfering an apple from a grocer. This has to change. The courts must use the punishments available to them. Children need to understand that, if caught, their childhood will effectively be over and they will suffer severe punishment.
"That also means that the police must be given full powers to stop and search children. But instead, not only do the courts and CPS treat children found with knives with kid gloves, dangerous idiots such as Sir Al Aynsley-Green, to whom we pay £130,000 a year for his wisdom as the Children's Commissioner for England, warn that allowing police the power to search children might antagonise them. That just about sums up how the whole edifice works: God forbid that a potential murderer is upset by having his coat examined."
The Daily Telegraph agrees that judges should be pushed to apply tougher interpretations of sentencing; an increase in "stop and search" activity by police is needed, too.
One in five youngsters claims to carry a knife, according to a recent survey: The vast majority of those may well be decent enough kids, often bullied into carrying a weapon for self-defence in fear of real nutters who wave knives around. It would be desperately unfair to lock up a child who carries a knife because he has been threatened with stabbing by one of the school thugs. However, with this in mind, it would be easy for a lawyer to persuade a court that their client was a member of the former rather than the latter tribe.
Furthermore, our American cousins will point out that knives don't kill people; people kill people. While any sensible observer could tell the difference between a knife a chap plans to carve up his lunch with, and another carried with the intent of slashing or stabbing, there is no guarantee that courts could make the distinction.
If this dilemma is tricky, then it isn't helped by the witterings of "Children's Commissioner", Sir Al Aynsley-Green. Sir Al claims that stopping and searching young people could "antagonise" them: "Anything that perpetuates the view that children are the troublemakers is a dangerous development," he said.
Melanie's solution is to combat this sixties throwback "anything goes" attitude with the reponse "nothing goes" - "A clear line has to be drawn in the sand, sending the unequivocal signal that no anti-social, threatening or criminal behaviour will be tolerated."
"Stopping the murder and mayhem on our streets means the police have to take back control of those streets. It means having no truck with the paralysing political correctness which means no one can move for fear of offending 'victim' groups. It means recognising that the people whose feelings should be paramount are thevictims of crime."
