Knife Crime and Punitive Measures

03 Jun 2006

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, this week congratulated the Government on their national knife amnesty and tougher measures to combat knife crime, but warned the Commons that punitive measures alone will not solve the problem. She told MPs and ministers that: “we will not have an impact on knife, gun and gang-related crime in the long run unless we address the youth culture in our inner cities.”

Referring to last week’s tragic stabbing of Kiyan Prince in north London Diane said: “We in Hackney are familiar with the aftershock of such crime because in 2004, 16-year-old Robert Levy was stabbed to death by a 15-year-old.”

She added: “The problem with both gun and knife crime is that, when there is an especially spectacular incident, it is all over the papers for a day or two, but then people forget about it. However, the problem is ongoing. There is a rising tide of incidents in the inner city. The problem does not just affect London, because the number of incidents of gun, knife and gang-related crime is increasing in urban areas throughout the country.”

She continued: “We need to be aware that knife crime and knife homicide is a schoolboy's crime because the peak age for knife crime is between 14 and 21. The idea of playground quarrels that would once have resulted in a bloody nose ending with someone bleeding to death in the gutter, like Kiyan Prince or Robert Levy, is tragic.”

She went on: “Such tragedies are also avoidable. I praise the Government for the work that they have already done on knife crime. We are going to raise the age at which it is legal to buy a knife from 16 to 18. We will also give teachers more powers to search schoolchildren for weapons, and there is talk of experimenting with metal detectors in schools. All those measures will be important and helpful, but I stress that we will not have an impact on knife, gun and gang-related crime in the long run unless we address the youth culture in our inner cities.” She pointed to the saturation of youth culture with music, videos and video games, all of which are riddled with violence as one of the major contributors to violent behaviour by schoolboys and called on the Government to “address the problem through not only law enforcement measures, but resources for such long-term work with young people and parents, whether that is done through local authorities, or through partnerships among the police, local authorities and the voluntary sector.”

Referring to the Olympics Diane said: “Some of the wards in London with the most serious problems relating to gun and knife-related crime are on the edge of what will be the footprint of the Olympic park. The idea that we will bring millions of people in 2012 into an area that has systemic problems with gun, knife and gang-related crime on its fringes could—I say only "could"—prove embarrassing to all of us.”

She concluded: “For the sake of the mother of Kiyan Prince, the parents of Robert Levy, a whole generation of young people growing up in our city and this country's reputation, we cannot afford to let gun and knife-related crime to be only the stuff of a few days' headlines before we all move on. We need sustainable work—both law enforcement and community work—that will help to save a generation of young boys who are being sucked up into a malign, lawless and violent culture.”



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