Knife crime: Ex-police chief says higher sentences alone will not work

17 comments
  1. > He said that had led to a higher risk of people reoffending.

    There’s one punishment with a guaranteed zero recidivism rate.

    We should use it.

  2. If someone carries a knife or other kind of weapon it should be a mandatory life prison sentence with a minimum term of 12 years. Stop pussyfooting about

  3. The thing with “increasing punishment” is that people who are going to commit a crime either don’t think about the punishment, or think they won’t face it

    Those raging justice boners ain’t doing shit to reduce crime

  4. What we need is better education and better community policing. But those aren’t popular because there’s no visible effect to the people who only care about being “tough on criminals”.

  5. The issue is that there’s a whole lot of stick, whilst very little carrot on offer.

    You can give police all the powers in the world to tackle knife crime. You can give courts the power to send people to jail for life for the first offence. It won’t have a significant impact until those that carry knives are given a better option in life.

    Whenever I deal with people involved in serious violence, the people carrying knives, they almost always have an absolutely shit life.

    – They live in a house that’s far too small for the family, sharing a room with 3/4 siblings.

    – They have parents who aren’t there to raise them, either because they’re too busy trying to earn enough to keep everyone fed and housed, or they had a shit upbringing themselves and so they literally do not care.

    – They’ve had a shit time in school, meaning they have no grades and no job prospects.

    – They’re surrounded by people in the exact same situation, so they can’t even be held up by their social group.

    – They’re living in a shitty, deprived area where there’s no social or sports clubs, no community groups, and simply nothing to do outside of school/work hours.

    There’s a reason that people who grow up in posh parts of Kensington and Chelsea don’t carry knives, whilst people who grow up in Hackney are much more likely to. A lack of investment in people’s lives is what causes violent crime.

  6. The sad truth is, like with so many things in life, there is no easy fix, no button that we can press and instantly solve the issue. This is the result of decades of inequality combined with a culture of criminality in certain sectors of the population, almost always deprived working class areas. This will take years of work along with massive funding to rectify, including uplift for those communities to draw them away from crime combined with a crackdown on organised crime that encourages these offenders.

  7. Hello we love to swim in our own shit, and we vote to commit self-sanction. Do you really think we want to listen to experts…. /s

  8. I agree, they won’t work while prison life is so easy and comfortable. I’ve worked in the prison service for years, and can tell you criminals have no fear of prison life because it’s so soft. The old career criminals laugh at some of the young soft lads who struggle with it, but most just find their time inside a breeze.

  9. Sure, but this doesn’t mean sentences shouldn’t be raised. Criminals do calculate, especially the dangerous ones. Not every crime is an accident or an in-the-moment “mistake”.

    Perhaps part of the reason why killers don’t think much about the sentence is because the sentence is hanging out with your buddies in prison, not the end of a rope?

    People who think sentences shouldn’t be raised rarely think we should have lighter sentences, so even they admit that there is some effect.

  10. Well, yes, but it may be part of a solution that you could put into place sooner rather than later.

    At the same time, look as what else you can do to address the issue. You know, a multi-pronged approach.

    We don’t have to wait for one singular All-Cure Elixer to deal with issues. You can try multiple things at once, see what works and what doesnt.

  11. Of course not! I could’ve told you that. These stupid bloody statements. Nothing will change until you answer the questions about why there is knife crime. Why are people stabbing people?

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