Knife Crime
- Thread starter gasbanni
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Is your usual MO.
No, that is incorrect.
You are making the assumption there is a linear scale.....which was not stated in my post.
Crimes rates are related to many factors, inequality, poverty, lack of opportunity, reoffending are all key factors and have greater impacts on crime levels than punishment.
Of course politicians love the 'tough on crime' mantra because it appeals and for right wing governments its a useful deflection from their policies that drive up poverty.
If people want to believe more punishment is the solution, thats fine. Personally I would rather take a pragmatic approach in the pursuit if reducing the the numbers of victims from crime.
The thread is about knife crime.
"inequality, poverty, lack of opportunity,"; how many of those are factors in the knife crime currently evident in the UK and, in particular, the capital?
Postcode wars? Stabbing someone because they're from the wrong street?
I agree that the causes of crime can be multi-factorial but, in the case of these knifings, it certainly doesn't look that way.
Did you see that Jeremy Kyle expose on knife crime, a few months ago?
Balaclava'd men (not kids) who stone-cold stated they'd stab someone just because they were from somewhere else.
Not robbery, not stepping on their drug patch, not jealousy for the victim having a better 'phone than them; just for being from somewhere else.
Yes, but my point about punishment was not specific to knife crime as it was a response to a general point on prison.
In regards to knife crime, its helpful to look at what the Violence Reduction Unit did in Glasgow
Here is an extract from New Scientist:
Politicians are talking tough, and there are calls for longer sentences for people found guilty of such crimes, as well as for just carrying a knife. But might there be other ways to tackle the problem? Scotland has seen its homicide figures fall since it began several initiatives to try to reduce violence by treating it as a public health issue, rather than a crime problem.
UK home secretary Sajid Javid has said this approach should be rolled out more widely. “I want serious violence to be treated by all parts of government, all parts of the public sector, like a disease,” he said earlier today.
That sounds radical, but it’s really a metaphor for tackling the underlying social causes of violence rather than just arresting people afterwards – like vaccinating to prevent disease instead of treating people after they get sick.
Scotland’s efforts are spearheaded by the Violence Reduction Unit, which was set up by Strathclyde Police in 2005 to tackle rising crime levels, particularly in the city of Glasgow. The unit targets its crime prevention efforts on those who are at highest risk of offending, just as public health officials target those most at risk of disease.
In this case, people who have just come out of prison are particularly at risk. A jail sentence can be a barrier to getting a job, leaving people with little choice but returning to crime. To address this, the unit has encouraged several local firms to employ former offenders, says deputy director Will Linden.
His team also offers mentoring and support to help people keep their jobs. “Young men who have been involved in crime have led chaotic lives for some time,” says Linden. “They may not know the rules of work – that you have to behave in certain ways, and turn up on time and inform the boss when you’re off
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...-learn-from-glasgows-approach-to-knife-crime/
In addition, crime is related to detection rates and and effectiveness of the justice system. I know its boring but police cuts is an issue. The ministry of justice has been cut by 40%. The prison service has been cut and privatised.
The justice system is in meltdown.
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some would say knife crime in Glasgow is currently at an all time high, some say all that is really down is the reporting of such crimes?
https://www.scotsman.com/news/polit...otland-higher-than-official-reports-1-4800625
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/ne...t-areas-police-glasgow-lanarkshire-edinburgh/
If you really want to see what did make a difference in Glasgow then look up Lord Carmont (1950s)
"Carmont had decided to solve the blade problem, he was merciless. In one court sitting he passed sentences of up to 10 years on eight men – 52 years in all – simply for carrying razors and knives. ... For a brief period in Glasgow's history, razors and knives vanished from its streets"
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/daily-express/20080724/281788509834933
We need a Lord Carmont now!
Did you read both articles, in full?
I ask because they both concur with my post above, IE solving knife crime means dealing with the underlying social causes.
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It certainly can do and in an ideal world that may be the way forward, however so far that approach is failing to deliver, where as Lord Carmonts approach worked very well and very very quickly.
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Falsifying quotes again ?
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I guess its "brief period" was probably down to his age, born in 1880 he may of well retired soon after his clampdown in 1952.
I also suspect his brutal sentencing was not appreciated by the more modern liberal academics that thought namby pamby love and understanding would be a nicer way to change the mindset of the more violent in our society. We have since embarked on this experiment of shorter and shorter sentences, I think it is becoming obvious that this approach ain't working to well. Time to bring back Carmont's approach.
I also suspect his brutal sentencing was not appreciated by the more modern liberal academics that thought namby pamby love and understanding would be a nicer way to change the mindset of the more violent in our society. We have since embarked on this experiment of shorter and shorter sentences, I think it is becoming obvious that this approach ain't working to well. Time to bring back Carmont's approach.
When you're fifty thousand posts in and this is your life, it's difficult to come up with original material.
You dont have the proof to back up your claim that Carmonts approach works -as far as I can see, the reports only seem to be anecdotal and cover a very brief period.
Dont you think your post is rather Daily Mail soundbites rather than evidence based?
"Namby pamby"
"Liberal academics"
I imagine your confirmation bias prevents you from reading all the body of evidence that refutes your mindset that tougher sentencing works.
Look at the biggest experiment in the world on using incarcerstion as a means to reduce crime: America.
"Just to say it in another way, in 1972 we had about 200,000 people in prison. We now have about 1.2 million people in prison. We have six times the number of people locked up, and we have basically the same crime rate we had."
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/...mericas-mass-incarceration-experiment-failed/
Criminologist William R. Kelly pulls no punches in his assessment of the grim state of America's churning criminal justice machine.
“Our criminal justice policies have failed to effectively reduce crime and recidivism; they have needlessly placed hundreds of thousands of individuals at risk of criminal victimization each year, ” says Kelly, author of Criminal Justice at the Crossroads: Transforming Crime and Punishment, recently published by Columbia University Press.
“And they have facilitated a large segment of the population cycling in and out of the justice system and becoming permanently dependent on public services, rather than being productive citizens.,” he adds
https://thecrimereport.org/2015/06/09/2015-06-why-tough-on-crime-failed/
And he re-ran and extended the regression analyses for eight of those studies, suggesting four needed “major re-interpretation” as a result. He concludes that “the best estimate of the impact of additional incarceration on crime in the United States today is zero”—there is at least as much evidence suggesting that decarceration reduces crime as increases it.
Behind that conclusion are three main findings. First, the deterrence impact of long sentences is very small. Studies of the three strikes law in California and mandatory minimum sentencing laws across the states suggest increasing sentences by 10% cuts crime by 1% and Mr Roodman’s re-analysis “calls even those mild estimates into question”. Second, tougher sentencing does reduce crime while prisoners are behind bars: Mr Roodman’s tentative conclusion from a California early release programme is that a year’s reduction in incarceration was associated with 6.7 more property crimes.
But third: the impact of reduced crime while perpetrators are behind bars is matched by increased criminal activity after they are released
https://www.economist.com/democracy.../locking-up-more-people-does-not-reduce-crime
The quote is not falsified.
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