With a new Prime Minister of Britain in office I wondered if his view on crime would be different than his predecessor? This is an article I wrote outlining a new idea to tackle knife crime.
How to Get Tough on Knife Crime
There is no such thing as an Original Idea. According to the German philosopher Manheim “…it is incorrect to say that the single individual thinks. Rather it is more correct to insist that he participates in thinking further what other men have thought before him.”[1]
Is it realistic, therefore, to think that increasing sentences for those that carry knives will have any significant impact on the number of youths killed on the UK’s city streets? If we examine our history and apply Manheim’s principal we can find a parallel – the Great Train Robbery.
After this landmark crime the sentences that were handed down to the perpetrators were intended to make an example of them – to serve as a deterrent to others that might commit such brazen armed robberies. The establishment were declaring that anybody stealing £2.6 Million would face 30 years in jail. But the criminal fraternity drew a different message.
Prior to the Great Train Robbery there had been a hierarchy of severity within each crime. An armed robbery committed with a firearm would attract a far longer sentence than a robbery committed by a perpetrator with a pick-axe handle. The robbers of the day would weigh up the risk & reward of their crime and go armed appropriately. But a dangerous precedent was set when the ring-leaders of the train robbery that had been armed with hammers and cudgels were handed 30 year sentences.
If the courts no longer drew a distinction between the weapons that were used in the commission of a crime, was there any point in only carrying a stick? If an armed robber was going to get thirty years anyway, why not carry a gun?
In the years after The Great Train Robbery the number of firearms used in robberies climbed steadily. So in answer to my earlier question, increasing sentences for those that carry knives will certainly have an impact on the number of youths killed on the UK’s city streets. It is likely that more will be shot and killed rather than stabbed and killed.
According to current sentencing guidelines (June 2019) – anyone found in possession of a firearm faces a mandatory five-year custodial sentence. What can we really expect to happen if being found in possession of a knife carries a similar tariff?
There have been suggestions that a custodial term would only become mandatory for a second offence of being caught in possession. In my opinion this does not solve the problem – it merely defers it. After the first conviction for carrying a bladed weapon Hobson’s choice once again applies, 2nd knife possession or first gun possession – still five years.
Even when a weapon is used in the commission of a crime there is little distinction. If a murder by stabbing is committed where a bladed weapon has been carried to the scene of a crime, the sentence that must be handed down is a mandatory life sentence with a minimum tariff of 25 years. If a gun were used in similar circumstances the minimum tariff would still be 25 years, but the gun may carry an extra 5 years as an aggravating feature. I contend that many view the distinction between a 25 and 30 year sentence as being insignificant.
At a recent Bath Spa University led criminology outreach programme I heard the first-hand accounts of peers who had been members of County Lines Gangs. They spoke of abject poverty and social exclusion. One man, Abs, summed it up, “I never saw a guy from my area wearing a suit to work. I barely saw anybody even go to work every day. The only people that ever had anything were the drug dealers and gang members. I was alone at fifteen when my mum died, I was kicked out of school and the gang became my family.”
The way to tackle knife crime is not to sentence the perpetrators, but to teach them another way and give them the opportunity to do something else. Believing it is normal to carry and even use a knife in a UK city is anathema to the majority of UK citizens. But there is a hardened minority that have become desensitised to this way of life. Their radicalisation has occurred in the void between their lack of opportunity and rising expectations. It is just as much a threat to society as any fascist right-wing movement or Islamic extremism.
Will our new (Original Thinking) Prime Minister follow Michael Howard’s ‘Prison Works!” mantra, or focus on undoing the cuts to community support and education that have cast so many youths adrift.
The way to tackle any radicalisation is to challenge the twisted ideology. Locking up the individual perpetrators merely creates vacancies for new recruits.
The Jailhouse Moose:
@jailhousemoose jailhousemoose@gmail.com
www.jailhousemoose.wordpress.com
[1] Ideology and Utopia, 2nd Edition. by Karl Manheim
