Knife crime.

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/272uu7e

/// The teenager is the 14th to be killed violently in the capital, and the 10th to be stabbed to death, this year.///

Harrowing figures in any capital city in the world, but we are not talking Kingston, Cape Town, or even Nairobi.

We are talking about our once great capital of London, which once was the envy of the world, where the policemen walked about with nothing more to protect them, than a truncheon.

[squarebear]

What that report seemed to miss out is that it was a gang related stabbing, not a random attack on an A* school pupil.

[Crazylegs]

Aog, I remember a time when a black person could not walk in london without being attacked, Abused, spat on or forced to the back of the bus. Do we now wonder why their children or childrens children are left with so much hate and disrespect? I know how i'd feel.

[ummmm]

What the hell was a 16 doing out at 1.10am? Surely some of the blame lays with the parents...

[squarebear]

He was in a gang ummmm. This "news" article is only half a story.

[ummmm]

Gang or no gang. A 16 year old should not be in the streets at that time. Mine certainly wouldn't be...

[sandyRoe]

Whether he was in a gang or not, it's a pity that another life is lost.

[Crazylegs]

Let us look at the reasons for poverty, low jobs situation the reason we all herded immigrants into tower(prison) blocks and the abuse we gave them before we look in the mirror and blame ourselves.

[ummmm]

The Irish use to get loads of hassle here. People use to go out Paddy wacking.

You don't see many of us stabbing each other.....

(Besides in Limerick)

[jno]

here are murder rates by country

http://www.nationmast...me-murders-per-capita

The UK is a modest 46th on the list

There are some city statistics in this story (it's from the Mail, so it must be true):

http://www.dailymail....aches-record-low.html

461 in New York (a record low!), 130 in London. Doesn't sound too harrowing for a city of that size; personally, I've never even bothered with a truncheon when I walk its mean streets.

[Crazylegs]

Ummm my views involve all immigrants black white and inbetween. I grew up with many Irish and and the same thing happens in predominantly Irish areas as does the same thing happen in Southhall amongst the Asian community as does it happens in many other communities where the crime of black on black, Asian on Asian Polish on Polish etc...crime happens

[jake-the-peg]

Can't imagine why they don't graduate to good old British crimes like murdering your ex's lover when you're let out of gaol, shooting at police men and instigating a major man hunt across the North East.

Time for them to step up a bit wouldn't you say?

[Crazylegs]

Jake that happens once in a blue moon, looks like our favourite crime involve mainly burgling beating to death and raping the elderly.

[naomi24]

Smart comments don't address the issue and world murder statistics are irrelevant. This isn't a joke, and AOG is not talking about murder victims in general - he's talking specifically about teenagers. We can try all we may to deny the problem exists, or we can conveniently excuse it for a variety of reasons, but Ummmm is the only one who has actually addressed the real issue - and I agree with her. What the hell was a 16 year old doing out on the streets after 1am? Nothing justifies the abandonment of parental responsibility.

[sp1814]

The answers would appear to be investment. Not money - but investment of time, investment of guidance and investment of stong local leadership.

It's no use simply blaming the parental discipline, gang culture, grime (that's music, rather than living conditions), schools or social services

I myself am investigating how to be taken on as a mentor (via the Big Brother Big Sister organisation), but forthcoming cuts to the LDA budget make the likelihood of the scheme being rolled out across London seem fairly unlikely.

At the other end of the issue (fincance, rather than community action), cuts to the Metropolitan Police budgets and the abolition of the Met Police Authority mean that delivery of Boris Johnson's Mayoral objectives have lost the good will of the Police and this is vital for any Mayor.

That's coupled with cuts to youth crime diversion and employment projects. Schemes such as the LEAP project in West London are to lose their funding, and the Code 7 youth project, and the Starlight Music academy in Brixton are being sued by Boris and evicted from their premises despite providing an excellent support service to young people.

So, all in all - no easy answers. We COULD say, "Right...anyone convicted of carrying a knife in public will automatically face a 10 year prison sentence" - but that's addressing the problem 'from the wrong end'. The issue needs to be tackled at source, and I doubt that there's the political will to this. It will take money, and it will take the complete re-education, and re-direction of an entire generation of kids.

[sp1814]

I somehow managed to screw up my previous post.

I meant to write:


It's no use simply blaming the parental discipline, gang culture, grime (that's music, rather than living conditions), schools, social services, or even peer pressure - it's a mixture of ALL of those influences and probably a lot more. That's what makes the problem so intractable.

[jno]

good to see you're actually trying to do something about this, sp1814, while others use it as an excuse to rant. Good luck.

[Quizmonster]

Sp1814 refers to "strong local leadership" as a possible answer to this sort of crime. I seem to recall that Boris Johnson, at the time of his election to Mayor, claimed that he - as opposed to Ken Livingstone - had the answer to knife-crime in London. Whatever the answer was, it doesn't seem to have worked!

[RATTER15]

When I was growing up in the 60s nearly every young lad carried a knife, either a pocket knife or a big sheath knife hanging off our belt, not because it was cool or intimidating, we never stabbed people or even threatened anybody. we got into scuffles then as kids do now, but it never entered our heads to use the knife that we carried. Knife to kids then were just a part of growing up, we had an inbuilt respect for them, they were used for cutting sticks, carving our name in the park bench but never was it seen as a weapon!!!!

[naomi24]

jno, //while others use it as an excuse to rant. //

No. Whilst I add my good wishes to SP, the others you refer to, rather than trivialising the problem by offering nothing positive, are attempting to address the fundamental reasons for its existence.

[sandyRoe]

"Strong local leadership" Didn't people used to say that in the area where the Krays held sway there was hardly any petty crime?