Gang culture blamed as knife crime doubles

Gang culture blamed as knife crime doubles

Daily Telegraph - 20 August 2007


KNIFE crime has more than doubled in the past two years across England and Wales, a damning report revealed yesterday.

The number of muggings involving knives soared from 25,500 in 2005 to 64,000 in the year up to April 2007, according to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) of King’s College, London.

Last year there were an average of 175 knife-point robberies a day — up from 110 in 2005/06 and 69 the year before, the CCJS disclosed. Knives are now used in one in five muggings, twice the frequency of two years ago.

Andrew Holland, 16, was killed in a stabbing in Bolton last week. On Friday night, a man attempted to stab a police officer through the open window of a patrol van on the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle.

The attacks and the CCJS data will blunt Labour’s boast that overall violent crime has fallen and will fuel Conservative calls for more effective, co-ordinated action to combat knife crime and anti-social behaviour in general.

The survey forced the Government to concede yesterday that it had not done enough to tackle the “gang culture” of young people carrying knives.

John Denham, the Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary, said he could not vouch for the accuracy of the CCJS’s figures but added he could not deny there was a “serious problem”.

“The sort of knife crime that we have seen recently, some of the drunken behaviour — we are not where we need to be on those issues,” he said. “Where there are underlying problems like the acceptance in gang culture around young people of knife carrying and the too-ready availability of alcohol to young people, we have got to carry on until we have tackled these problems.”

Mr Denham urged the courts to implement tougher penalties on knife carrying. Last year, the Government increased the maximum penalty for being in possession of a knife or blade from two to four years’ imprisonment.

Richard Garside, director of the CCJS, said ministers had taken the wrong approach. “The Government has embarked on endless law-andorder initiatives, yet kniferelated robberies appear to be increasing,” he said. “Success in tackling knife-related violence will require a concerted strategy to deal with the causes of violence, of which the social antagonisms caused by poverty and inequality are key.”

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, accused the Government of taking two years to “wake up to the massive explosion in knife crime and concede to Conservative calls for an increase in the penalty for carrying knives”.

Mr Davis said: “The Government owes it to the public to take a grip of drink, drugs, and the broken homes that have spawned this plague on modern Britain”.

The Home Office said crime and violent crime had both fallen by a third in the past 10 years, while knife killings were “broadly stable”. A spokesman said: “We will continue to tackle knife and other forms of crime through police powers and prevention.”