What's behind the cries?

Tabloid scare stories of ‘knife crime’ don’t give the whole story. Brian Richardson learns more from new research by the Howard League

During the summer months of 2008 there was a predictable hue and cry in the media following a spate of fatal stabbings on the streets of the UK. In particular, there has been a major focus on the supposedly menacing and murderous activity of marauding teenage gangs. The fact that the majority of both the victims and alleged perpetrators of these tragedies were black males added an extra dimension to the stories.

The racial aspect to this reporting was, in fact, the subject of an interesting debate on BBC Radio 4 in September. The reporter Steve Hewlett challenged a panel of print and broadcast journalists to consider whether knife crime really has risen or whether it is simply the reporting of it that has changed since the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. Notably, the programme contrasted the prominent and sympathetic treatment given to white victims such as Ben Kinsella and Jimmy Mizen, with that of the black youth who had been slain in similar circumstances.

During the programme, the chair of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, Trevor Phillips, himself a former TV executive, made an interesting observation. He suggested that media portrayals typically fall into one of two camps: they are either heart-rending stories of dignified victims – invariably God-fearing families, or they seek to demonise supposedly feral and uncontrollable youth. The truth, Phillips argued, is more subtle and complex. He suggested that it is apparent from the names of most recent victims and alleged perpetrators that a significant proportion are from refugee backgrounds. The significance of this is that those young people’s formative experiences will almost certainly have involved the sight of, and flight from, the most brutal violence. Many of them may even have suffered at the hands of persecutors themselves. The psychological impact that this will have had upon those young minds and the difficulty they will have faced adjusting to a new environment are factors that have not been properly taken into consideration. Such an analysis suggests that, rather than leading the cry for tougher sentences, the media should provide the forum for an informed debate about these underlying causes.

Such a debate could begin with a sober and honest account of the real levels of knife crime. The British Crime Survey (BCS) is widely regarded as the most authoritative snapshot of crime in England and Wales. Its most recent report indicated that overall violent crime, the category into which knife crime fits, has actually decreased by 41 per cent since its peak in 1995. The health warning that applies to this however is that the BCS does not record crime amongst those aged under 16, precisely the age group amongst whom the problem would appear to have exploded. It would be dangerously complacent to ignore the evidence – including that presented to a commission convened by Channel Four television and chaired by Cherie Booth QC – that suggests that there has been a marked increase in such activity. This evidence is not simply anecdotal. At the time of writing 28 young lives had been, literally, cut short on the streets of Britain between January and mid-November 2008.

The reasons for this increase are explored in a thoughtful new piece of qualitative research published by the Howard League for Penal Reform. Written by Nicola Marfleet, Why Carry A Weapon? is based upon a series of focus groups with a cohort of young males aged between 15 and 17 at Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) and Young Offenders Institutions (YOIs). Marfleet uses her own experience as a prison governor to empathise with her interviewees and draw out a number of astonishingly frank testimonies.

Her research identifies a range of causal factors including parental influence, absent fathers and gang related activity. However it is clear that the primary concern of young people is simply to avoid being stabbed themselves. A number of interviewees admitted to having carried, and been prepared to use knives as a form of pre-emptive self-defence. One particular response is worth highlighting:

‘I’d rather have a shank and flick it out and start wetting man than get stabbed myself. ‘Cos if you have a shank and they haven’t, they’re gonna back off.’

In such circumstances, for these young people, the threat of a stiff prison sentence at some point down the road, should they get caught, comes a distant second to staying alive. Whether these fears are justified is a moot point.

Marfleet’s research cites a MORI poll, which reported that 62 per cent of excluded pupils, compared with 29 per cent of young people in schools, admit to carrying knives. Once they are out on the streets these young people find themselves trapped in a seemingly inevitable spiral of descent that sucks them into the penal system. No less a figure than the former Director General of the Prison Service, and now the Chief Executive of children’s charity Barnados, Martin Narey suggested in a 2007 report commissioned by the then Department for Education and Skills that:

‘The 13,000 young people excluded from school each year might as well be given a date by which to join the prison service some time down the line.’

The obvious conclusion that should flow from these assertions is that stiffer sentences for young offenders offer no lasting solution to the problem.

At the height of the summer, the Court of Appeal did, in fact, remind judges of the need for a tough approach. The judgment in R v Povey and others [2008] EWCA 1261, was delivered by Sir Ivor Judge, shortly before his appointment as Lord Chief Justice. He began by noting that: ‘Offences involving knife crime have recently escalated to epidemic proportions.’ He then declared that: ‘It is important that the public has confidence in the criminal justice system.’ He suggested that prevailing conditions are now ‘much more grave than fiveand- a-half years ago when the guideline authority had been decided’. He therefore concluded: ‘Magistrates Court Sentencing Guidelines as to bladed articles and offensive weapons should normally be applied at the most severe end of the appropriate range of sentences.’

Another controversial preventative measure has been the increased use by the police of powers under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. These provisions allow officers to stop and search persons in a given locality for a period not exceeding 24 hours if an officer of superintendent rank or above reasonably believes that ‘incidents involving serious violence may take place’ and ‘it is expedient (to authorise such activity) to prevent the occurrence of such violence’. Moreover, the section allows any officer in uniform to:

‘[S]top any person or vehicle and make any search he thinks fit whether or not he has any grounds for suspecting that the person or vehicle is carrying weapons or articles of that kind.’

In the London area, the Metropolitan Police claim that the use of this tactic under its Operation Blunt 2 initiative led to a 12 per cent reduction in knife crime between May and November 2008. However critics, including the prominent criminologist Professor Marian Fitzgerald of Kent University, have highlighted the fact that 97 per cent of stops produce no result. This raises serious questions both about the effectiveness of the tactic and the impact that these encounters have upon the relationship between the police and young people.

The teenagers interviewed by Nicola Marfleet expressed mixed and contradictory views about the role of the police. Those interviewees from the PRUs tended to mistrust the police and also felt that they offered them little protection. In contrast, and perhaps surprisingly, those from the YOI felt that the police were necessary because ‘you need law and order in the world’ and that they were ‘just doing their jobs’ when conducting stop and searches. However these young people also believed that the police could not protect them, hence their decision to arm themselves with knives.

No doubt many in the tabloid press would argue that Phillips’ observation, if true, reinforces the need for the UK to impose tighter immigration controls and tougher restrictions on the leave to remain of refugees. Unhappily for them however, and despite periodic mutterings by politicians about the need to ‘overhaul’ the Refugee Convention, the UK cannot breach its obligations under international humanitarian law.

How people are treated once they have been granted refugee status is another matter. The premature deaths of dozens of young people and the fear that constricts the minds and movements of thousands of others are a tragic waste of their potential. If Trevor Phillips’ and Nicola Marfleet’s assessments are correct, the solution to knife crime amongst young people must lie, in part, in the search for more sensitive approaches to the integration of traumatised arrivals from conflict stricken societies, a less punitive approach to school exclusions and the development of a more stimulating and inclusive curriculum.

Why Carry a Weapon? – A Study of Knife Crime Amongst 15-17 Year Old Males in London is published by the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Brian Richardson is editor of the book ‘Tell It Like It Is – How Our Schools Fail Black Children’ and will be taking up pupillage at Garden Court Chambers in the autumn.