Debates about knife crime and sentencing always make me think of my visit to the local youth crime court. I witnessed a young man who had ‘forgotten’ he had a knife in his shoe when he left home. He was sentenced to a referral order. Would the change in sentencing knife crime have changed the outcome for him? Well, no. He was a first time youth offender. The change voted through in the House of Commons on Tuesday was for those caught a second time. They also remind me of a London headteacher I met who told me that at the end of term he had forgotten about the knives he had confiscated until he opened his bottom drawer. Knife crime is a real and dangerous problem that we have to tackle with an approach that incorporates tougher sentencing but also focuses on prevention.
Tougher sentencing for a second knife offence will be a contribution to tackling knife crime. Sentencing for knife crime does need strengthening – it does not sufficiently take account of the risk posed by those who carry a knife. It is a serious crime. And it is a crime that is far more prevalent than gun crime, wounding and killing many more people. Longer custodial sentences for second-time offenders will send a powerful message and should also reassure the public. There has to be effective support for those offenders when they leave prison. As with everything, one measure will not be the solution. It will only be effective if we also understand and tackle the reasons people carry knives. Tougher sentencing has to be coupled with educating people that carrying a knife is not only unacceptable but increases the danger to the person carrying the knife.
First-time offenders need more attention so they do not graduate into second-time offenders. The young man whose case I sat in on was sentenced with a referral order. He should have had a referral order with tagging and a curfew. It could have given him time out from the streets and a chance to find the space away from his peers to rethink and change his behaviour. All first-time offenders should have a compulsory knife awareness programme with options for tagging and curfews. They should have no misunderstanding about the seriousness of knife crime and of being convicted again.
It is the changing of the behaviour of those who carry and use knives that is crucial. A recent home affairs select committee report found that a lack of faith in the ability of parents and police to keep them safe seems to motivate much of the knife carrying among young people, with a perception that everyone else is carrying a knife. A report for the home secretary by Brooke Kinsella, whose brother was murdered, found fear and fashion motivated young people to carry knives.
Schools and youth services will be crucial in educating young people about the dangers of knives and the consequences of knife crime. Good schools with strong pastoral care will know this to be true. In areas of concern headteachers should be encouraged and supported to allow anti-knife crime projects into schools – the headteacher I met would welcome such projects. Restorative justice within the community can have a role to play in educating offenders. And the police need to double their efforts to rebuild the trust of young people who do not feel safe so they do not feel the need to seek the false protection of carrying a knife. Falling police numbers and the shift away from proper neighbourhood policing will make this task harder.
In the last four years Hackney has seen significant and substantial reductions in knife crime. We know that young people have started to feel safer. Our ground-breaking work tackling gangs has played a major part in this success. While not all those who commit knife crime are in gangs, tackling gangs through strong enforcement, diversion and preventative work has been crucial. Hackney’s integrated gangs unit was set up in 2010. The unit is a partnership that brings together the police, probation, an adviser from the Department for Work and Pensions, the council’s community safety officers, the council’s youth services and the Safer London Foundation. It is recognised as good practice across London.
Through our partnership work tackling gangs we have focused on the very small minority of people who were the root of a lot of violence in our communities and who added to young people fearing for their safety. And through Hackney’s ambitions for all young people to raise their aspirations and succeed at school the borough is now providing first-class education, opportunities and skills for young people.
There are still some barriers to our partnership work. In Hackney we have been pushing for a standard procedure for A&E departments in relation to notifying the police. Serious injury is inflicted by both guns and knives but only gunshot injuries require notification to the police by doctors. Doctors are sometimes left balancing confidentiality against disclosing knife crime to the police. The pan-London A&E data sharing process has been useful and the co-operation of our local hospital has been invaluable but there needs to be enhanced legal and policy guidance around knife crime disclosure and referral.
The shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan is right. It is a disservice to the victims of knife crime and their families to pretend a change in the law is a panacea. It is through a package of measures – educating young people about the dangers of knives, tougher sentencing and better support for repeat offenders, creating safer communities, improving police relations, working with families and providing hope and aspiration – that we will divert people away from the destruction knives can cause.
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Sophie Linden is deputy mayor of Hackney and council lead for crime and community safety
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