Knife crimes

[BagOfCrisps 24]

The UK right now seems to be in the throes of a 'knife crime' frenzy.

I can't remember knives being a problem when I was a teen out there going for nights out (a fair while back now admittedly).

 

How on earth did we get to this?

 

Quote:

New proposals to tackle knife crime demonstrate just how little ministers know about the context our kids are operating in.

 

Young people don't get involved with crime because they don't know the consequences; in many cases, it's precisely because they do know the consequences that they carry a blade.

 

When you know just how bad a stab wound can be, you want to keep a knife close to your chest to have some credible threat of self-defence against others. This has been recognised by the government's own newly appointed lead on knife crime, Alf Hitchcock, who has said that 85% of young people who carry blades do so because they fear for their personal safety.

 

Many of these young people would give up their knives if they knew everyone else would. But when that can't be guaranteed, which kid is going to be the first to volunteer to walk unarmed?

 

Many young people who carry knives don't just know about the consequences second-hand. A few weeks ago I met a girl in a hospital recovering from a stab wound. Before her bandages had even been taken off, she was telling me how she was going to "get back" the girl who attacked her. Our hospital doors are revolving as the same kids repeatedly come back with the same problems.

 

Why? It's not because they don't know the consequences of knife crime; it's because they are caught up in systems that they feel don't offer them any alternatives.

 

Knife crime in Japan?

[tsondaboy 0]

Yes,but no to that extend. Mostly psychos that flip out and start stabbing people on the street, subway indisciminately.

[bobby12 0]

Give them guns. That will act as a deterrant and solve the problem. Or stop them watching video games.

 

Something simple like that should do, rather than rethinking how we bring up kids in our society.

[thursday 1]

it's quite sickening when you hear about these random stabbings. Just a progression from random slapping. Next will be random shooting.

[rach 1]

I have been reading about that the last few days. Terrible. It's hard to know how bad it is, I'm still stuck with my image of how things were when I was at college etc. I wonder how different it is now for those age group people and whether things actually have changed a lot.

[Rag-Doll 0]

This is from today's BBC article about crime stats - seems things aren't quite as bad as they seem.

 

 

If you turned to the last two months' headlines for a sense of what is happening to crime, you would probably spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder for an incoming knife-wielding hoodlum.

 

But the latest annual crime statistics for England and Wales could not be clearer about national trends: offences are down yet again and we are in the longest ever recorded period of falling crime.

 

While we in the national media may have been highlighting brutal knife slayings, the reality for most parts of England and Wales is completely different.

 

The government relies on two officials measures to work out what is happening to crime: offences recorded by the police and the 47,000-strong British Crime Survey (BCS) which captures experiences which do not always lead to a 999 call.

 

And the key to knowing if it is safe to walk the streets of Hackney lies in the relationship between these stats, flaws in the system, wider social or policing factors - and which newspaper you read.

 

Good news for government

 

The 2007-08 figures are generally good news. Recorded crime is down 9% to 5m offences.

 

The number of the most serious violence crimes has fallen by 12%. Recorded drug offences are the only one of eight key measures to have significantly risen - up almost a fifth on the previous year.

 

Overall, the British Crime Survey says the rate of offending on the streets of England and Wales today is the lowest it has been since 1995 - the longest recorded period of falling crime.

 

Violence offences

 

The current key public concern has been a fear of knife-carrying and gun-toting gang members running the inner-city streets of Britain.

 

HOW MANY ATTACKED? WHAT VIOLENCE VICTIMS SAID

One: 54% of violent incidents

Two: 13%

Three: 8%

Four plus: 25%

Source: BCS 2007-08

 

For the first time we have some proper figures on rates of knife crime - they were used in 6% of all violent incidents.

 

To put that in perspective, bottles or glasses were used in 4% of incidents and firearms in 1%.

 

Overall, there were just over 22,000 crimes of attempted murder, GBH, and robbery involving knives or "sharp instruments" - that is one-in-five of all the offences in those categories.

 

Almost 40% of serious wounding crimes and just over a third of all homicides involved a knife.

 

Gun crime is up 2% and "all homicides" up 3%. More detailed research on what those rises mean will come later in the year.

 

Concern over knife crimes has been concentrated on a number of terrible deaths in a number of key inner cities, chiefly London.

 

The Metropolitan Police say that knife crime in the capital is down 16% - 7,409 offences in all.

 

Fight night

 

But the majority of violent offences were committed by single young men - and the key factor behind that is booze.

 

CRIME FIGURES IN FULL

Crime in England and Wales 2007/08 [1.8Mb]

Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Download the reader here

Almost one million acts of violence on the streets of England and Wales are thought to have been committed by people who were too drunk to stop themselves having a go at someone else.

 

So what this all comes down to is a difference between perception and reality. We perceive there is a problem with youth gang crime - but the evidence suggests it may be more to do with delinquency, drunkenness and boredom. The reality is that the real source of most violent crime remains Friday and Saturday nights.

 

Crime has been falling in almost every developed nation, regardless of the specific crime-busting approaches by different governments.

 

So while six out of 10 people think crime is rising nationally, the risk of being a victim is at its lowest level since the BCS began in 1981. The statisticians report goes on to note that those most likely to say crime has risen a lot are also most likely to read a tabloid. And that's a damning sideswipe at the media that ministers would never be prepared to make.

 

We don't know why people think crime is rising - but the statisticians have say there's evidence that

 

Economic prosperity has helped cut crime - there is a powerful argument that China's cheap goods boom has meant it is not worth nicking a DVD player anymore.

 

But more importantly, police everywhere have far more sophisticated methods to solve crimes while homes and cars are far more secure than they were in the 1980s.

 

The question for policy-makers is whether these falls will be sustainable. Research in the past has suggested that economic downturns lead to more property crime. If we are on our way into the bad times this will be the figure to watch

[Mantas 3]

When I was growing up in Newcastle (Aus), there sure were plenty of street fights going on on Friday and Saturday nights but never did I hear of anyone getting stabbed. These days street fight can easily end with someone being stabbed, and not neccessarily by a knife. A broken glass or bottle will do the trick as well.

BTW Australian kids under 16 ??? Are not permitted by law to carry a knife on their persons. Is it the same in the UK?

[snowdude 44]

I thought it was actually illegal to carry a knife at any age in the UK without a proper reason, but not sure, as I have never carried a knife never thought about it. When I was a teenager no one carried knives, if we had any disputes we would fight knock the crap out of each other and that would be it.

There have always been some street gangs even when I was a child and I lived in a small rural town, but no one carried knives.

 

Most of the statistics for knife crimes are related to a few areas of the UK, mainly certain parts of London, which is not mentioned, making it seem like all of England and wales is like this.

 

None the less the world is fast becoming a screwed up place to live in, wouldn't it be nice for the whole world to live in peace, oh no I am dreaming again....!

 

 

Originally Posted By: Mantas

When I was growing up in Newcastle (Aus), there sure were plenty of street fights going on on Friday and Saturday nights but never did I hear of anyone getting stabbed. These days street fight can easily end with someone being stabbed, and not neccessarily by a knife. A broken glass or bottle will do the trick as well.

BTW Australian kids under 16 ??? Are not permitted by law to carry a knife on their persons. Is it the same in the UK?