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knife violence and murders among youth

It’s all of the above and more- I don’t think you can pin it down to any overriding cause apart from deprivation and class. Massive insecurity and a sprinkling of mental illness that is pretty much ignored doesn’t help. The behaviours exhibited can be seen as early as primary school school starters now / this isn’t going to go away in a score of years , never mind a decade. Horrendous. Utterly sickening negligence by successive governments.
 
Glasgow has managed it so it proves it can be turned around even if it takes decades no reason not to start now.
It's not a crime problem Its a Social Health problem.
Poverty lack of opportunities in education because without qualifications and education your opportunities are limited.
take the poverty away the gangs will wither you don't see undergraduates hanging around street corners starting fights with knives (you don't need to go to college you do need a job though).
 
Cid said:
It’s worth actually reading the article linked in the op- talking about violence as endemic in school age boys. In a sense that may or may not see expression in gangs, but in the context of the article is something much deeper, rooted in fear.
Click to expand...

The article really resonated with my memories of growing up in a crappy midlands town in the 80s, the threat of violence was always there. No idea how to change things though :(
 
likesfish said:
Glasgow has managed it so it proves it can be turned around even if it takes decades no reason not to start now.
It's not a crime problem Its a Social Health problem.
Poverty lack of opportunities in education because without qualifications and education your opportunities are limited.
take the poverty away the gangs will wither you don't see undergraduates hanging around street corners starting fights with knives (you don't need to go to college you do need a job though).
Click to expand...

Iceland is also worth looking at. They tackled a growing drug problem among the youth with two measures, one of which you couldn't do here but the other you could. The one you couldn't do here was the imposition of a curfew! No chance here - it would be counterproductive, racist police, etc. But with that came the opportunity to do all kinds of activities - sports, music, arts, etc. It's been credited as a major reason for the rise in the Iceland football team.

This is what makes me despair at the slashing of youth services budgets. Aside from the human cost, it is a classic example of false economy - it costs way more long term.
 
While its no where near as entrenched or the murder rate as high as in London, I'm increasingly aware that something is going on in the west end of Newcastle where I live and work. There was a stabbing murder of a young man at the weekend, a few others over the last couple of years, and a few incidents of fights with weapons. Part of my job involves looking after public space, and over the last month or two I keep finding weapons hidden in bushes or behind walls - and not the pocket knifes and paring knives and box cutters that I've found before that could possibly have been carried for a legitimate reason and dropped by accident - large kitchen knives, cleavers, baseball bats, a hammer with what looks like blood on it wrapped in a bag, someone's Bangladeshi nana's Bonti - its definitely about weapons aimed to scare (but which also would do damage). There's definitely a change in behaviour and increase in tension with some of the young people. Its scary. And at just this moment the local youth club loses funding and closes (after every other service has closed or been cut in some way). Cunts. :mad:
 
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Social housing is certainly needed, but where's the space for it, especially in inner London?

Here in Worthing we have a problem with space, the borough has built-out to the borders of the district councils to the west & east, and likewise to the north & south, where we border the South Downs National Park & the sea.

Some brown field/former retail sites are being developed for housing, the council has recently taken over a former pub to turn into 12 or so flats to house the homeless, but these options are limited, and go no near to what is required, it's a serious problem, surely it's even worst in London?
 
Ive been pretty shocked at the level of casual violence at my sons school. I’m a woman but I just don’t remember it being that bad in the 90s. There seem to be pretty vicious fights on a weekly basis that the kids film. I mean lads on the floor being booted and stamped on kind of shocking violence, not just lots of mouth and squaring up and maybe a few punches thrown. There also seems to be a trade in ‘weapons’ (knuckle dusters, BB guns, fireworks, never a knife that I’ve heard of). The school has a dedicated police officer and it’s not just for show the guy actually arrests if he needs to (my eldest is in year 11 and I still can’t get over this fact, a fucking police officer to try and protect kids in school!).

I dunno how much the drug trade is fuelling this, it’s leeds not London. Lack of opportunity definitely. Poverty. A lot of parents frankly not giving enough of a shit. One of the biggest problems they have is non attendance, kids just don’t go and parents don’t make them. Any point excluding a kid like that? No. It becomes really difficult for the school to discipline kids cos essentially they do as they please, they simply walk out.

I think the lack of proper authority figures, basically proper adults, in a lot of these young people’s lives means there’s a general attitude of survival of the most violent. And it’s matched with this stupid culture of not snitching at any cost, and the cost is high. When my eldest fell out with some lads who went on to get arrested for burglary he was threatened repeatedly with being stabbed. He was fourteen! It almost certainly was bravado bullshit but I still had to talk with him that in no circumstances was he ever to carry a knife even for self defence. It really is shit and it’s not all poor families it comes down to opportunity yes but also just decency.
 
What about Stop and Search policies?
I know they’re regarded as racist but surely kids having this intrusion to their civil liberties is preferable to the fear they’re currently living under and them dying at the rate they are?
 
As an ex-police officer I know stop and search is no solution to knife crime | Leroy Logan

When I was the deputy borough commander of Hackney, east London, from 2004 to 2007, I was in charge of the safer neighbourhood teams, whose purpose was to build trust and confidence and improve two-way information sharing. I also had safer schools officers in each of the borough’s secondary schools. These all generated significant intelligence on why and where violent crime was occurring, and helped in crime prevention.

I realised then that we could not arrest our way out of the knife crime problem, since it bore no correlation with stop and search. This is still the case today, according to Home Office data: the proportion of stop and searches that end in arrest for carrying a knife is less than 5%. The Met undertook 300,000 stop and searches last year (more than 50% of all stops nationally); and given that black people are eight times more likely to be stopped than white people, there’s little doubt the resentment it causes has an impact on community intelligence, an essential ingredient in effective policing. Added to this, the safer neighbourhood teams have now been drastically cut under austerity, like many police resources. The Met has fewer than 30,000 officers for the first time in 15 years, and has 700 fewer detectives than it had a few years ago.
Click to expand...
 
As well as adult role models, I think these kids need credible peers that can show them alternatives, and also speak to them about the stupid bloody waste that comes from taking certain paths.

They also need confidence that society at large has their back.

Theirs is a mini-society that feels totally detached from other generations and from what is going on generally, like it’s own little parallel universe existing in the same space.

I carried a knife to school myself for a while. These kids feel totally alone and vulnerable when outside their “manor”, and feel they need to defend their area and friends with violence because they don’t see other options. How could they when the world just regards then as a pest control problem?

Stop and search just confirms to them what society at large thinks of them.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
It’s almost like they’re not bothered about building intelligence-led profiles of those committing these types of offences in working class communities but have everything at their disposal to follow political activists about.
Click to expand...

That is perhaps not unconnected to the fact that money has been taken out of the units that are based in or deal with local communities (and in many cases the units themselves or their stations have been taken out of the communities) whilst money has been put into those units that deal with extremism, counterrorism etc.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
What about Stop and Search policies?
I know they’re regarded as racist but surely kids having this intrusion to their civil liberties is preferable to the fear they’re currently living under and them dying at the rate they are?
Click to expand...
The problem with them is that young black & Asian men are stopped more often than young white men, and when they are stopped & searched the police often seem to abuse their power.

What’s needed are good stable jobs and less people on benefits, with more housing and lower housing costs. Then there’s a solid future.

There’s also a massive need for youth clubs. You’d think kids would scorn these but again & again from my sons and their mates I hear that they’d want to go. All they want to do at this age is hang out with a few activities (pool table, drinks machine, basketball hoop, console). This doesn’t exist in my area, the nearest ones are miles away (I’ve driven them and their mates sometimes). Between the ages of 12 and 16 the choices are the street, your bedroom or your mates bedroom. I try and not have mine out on the street after dark (in winter that’s hard).

There needs to be more responsibility among men to actively bring up their kids, and on women if they’re separated to allow and encourage that. Sons especially need fathers.

And this may be unpopular but I think there needs to be a change in culture around kids and young people respecting adults. If a teacher disciplines your kid then in all but the most exceptional circumstances (basically unless the teacher is being abusive in some way) as a parent you support the teacher. My kids constantly bitch on at me that I don’t ‘have their backs’ like other parents do, that I’m not on their side. Cos I’m bloody not! If they feel hard done by then they need to learn how to deal with the situation, even if it really is unfair.

I just don’t hold with this ‘all coppers are bastards’ or my kids shouldn’t be put in isolation or shouted at or excluded. In over a decade of school I’ve yet to come across a teacher who if you have an actual conversation with them doesn’t actually have a proper handle on your kid and where it’s going wrong. They’re your partners, so do your kid a favour and work with them. Same with the PCOS I’ve had dealings with. Kids need boundaries no matter how much they (pretend) they don’t like them. My two tell me ‘it’s really annoying your so strict but I know it’s cos you care’. And there it is.

Anyway that’s my take on it.
 
8ball said:
As well as adult role models, I think these kids need credible peers that can show them alternatives, and also speak to them about the stupid bloody waste that comes from taking certain paths.

They also need confidence that society at large has their back.

Theirs is a mini-society that feels totally detached from other generations and from what is going on generally, like it’s own little parallel universe existing in the same space.

I carried a knife to school myself for a while. These kids feel totally alone and vulnerable when outside their “manor”, and feel they need to defend their area and friends with violence because they don’t see other options. How could they when the world just regards then as a pest control problem?

Stop and search just confirms to them what society at large thinks of them.
Click to expand...

Oh Fuck off. It’s mostly drug related (and protecting/expanding territories) so stop and search will completely change the way those involved organise.
And the important people to consider are those whose communities are hell because of this stuff, not the lumpen cunts causing the problems.
 
Edie said:
The problem with them is that young black & Asian men are stopped more often than young white men, and when they are stopped & searched the police often seem to abuse their power.

What’s needed are good stable jobs and less people on benefits, with more housing and lower housing costs. Then there’s a solid future.

There’s also a massive need for youth clubs. You’d think kids would scorn these but again & again from my sons and their mates I hear that they’d want to go. All they want to do at this age is hang out with a few activities (pool table, drinks machine, basketball hoop, console). This doesn’t exist in my area, the nearest ones are miles away (I’ve driven them and their mates sometimes). Between the ages of 12 and 16 the choices are the street, your bedroom or your mates bedroom. I try and not have mine out on the street after dark (in winter that’s hard).

There needs to be more responsibility among men to actively bring up their kids, and on women if they’re separated to allow and encourage that. Sons especially need fathers.

And this may be unpopular but I think there needs to be a change in culture around kids and young people respecting adults. If a teacher disciplines your kid then in all but the most exceptional circumstances (basically unless the teacher is being abusive in some way) as a parent you support the teacher. My kids constantly bitch on at me that I don’t ‘have their backs’ like other parents do, that I’m not on their side. Cos I’m bloody not! If they feel hard done by then they need to learn how to deal with the situation, even if it really is unfair.

I just don’t hold with this ‘all coppers are bastards’ or my kids shouldn’t be put in isolation or shouted at or excluded. In over a decade of school I’ve yet to come across a teacher who if you have an actual conversation with them doesn’t actually have a proper handle on your kid and where it’s going wrong. They’re your partners, so do your kid a favour and work with them. Same with the PCOS I’ve had dealings with. Kids need boundaries no matter how much they (pretend) they don’t like them. My two tell me ‘it’s really annoying your so strict but I know it’s cos you care’. And there it is.

Anyway that’s my take on it.
Click to expand...

I agree that there has to be an economic answer, I’m a communist but we have a conservative govt.
I’d rather my kid had the inconvenience of police intrusion though than be dead.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
What’s your argument then. You’re against stop and search as a form of pressure against this type of offending?
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:

You aren't interested in stats then? You posited this question...

What about Stop and Search policies?
I know they’re regarded as racist but surely kids having this intrusion to their civil liberties is preferable to the fear they’re currently living under and them dying at the rate they are?
Click to expand...

I provided some evidence to help us all think about this issue more fully...you respond by demanding I outline an argument and then ascribe one for me...Fuck off. I've spent my day making older people safer and more independent at home, excuse me if I've yet to have my dinner and write you an essay.

I'll get back to this in my own time, not yours.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
Oh Fuck off. It’s mostly drug related (and protecting/expanding territories) so stop and search will completely change the way those involved organise.
And the important people to consider are those whose communities are hell because of this stuff, not the lumpen cunts causing the problems.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it means knives are more likely to be stashed rather than carried, while the targeting of stop and search generates more alienation and resentment.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
I agree that there has to be an economic answer, I’m a communist but we have a conservative govt.
I’d rather my kid had the inconvenience of police intrusion though than be dead.
Click to expand...
Yes. And my eldests two best mates are both black. And their mothers are waaaaaay more strict than me (I’m talking 15yo lads who have to be in their home or my house by 9pm, who ring to check with me that they are where they’re saying they are etc). I recently had a talk with one of them after our boys had got into trouble (well, mine turned out to be covering for hers for a change) and she TOLD me that’s partly because she doesn’t want him to be stopped by the police. That cannot be right can it.
 
What are you going to do Magnus? A couple of coppers on every street corner? Knife arches if you want to leave your building?
 
Cid said:
What are you going to do Magnus? A couple of coppers on every street corner? Knife arches if you want to leave your building?
Click to expand...

It’s astonishing that cops are able to track any political activists who tickle their alerts and even insert officers into their lives but can’t work out which cunts carry knives, isn’t it?
 
Edie said:
Yes. And my eldests two best mates are both black. And their mothers are waaaaaay more strict than me (I’m talking 15yo lads who have to be in their home or my house by 9pm, who ring to check with me that they are where they’re saying they are etc). I recently had a talk with one of them after our boys had got into trouble (well, mine turned out to be covering for hers for a change) and she TOLD me that’s partly because she doesn’t want him to be stopped by the police. That cannot be right can it.
Click to expand...

She is scared. The 'TALK' is a thing that many Black parents have with their male children. Even those that aren't out and about.

Black parents describe "The Talk" they give to their children about police

African-American parents say ‘The Talk’ is a life-and-death matter
 
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