Thu 7 Mar 2019, 05:16 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER by Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot CLP (personal capacity)
At the time of writing, the main issue hitting the headlines is the deaths of young people as a result of knife attacks. The TV programme Dispatches reported that there has been a 93% increase in stab attacks of under 18s during the last five years. There has been a 77% increase in the number young people murdered and a rise of 52% in robberies involving the use of knives.
Presenter Bernard Hogan-Howe, formally the boss of the Met Police, argued that the rise in knife attacks was the increase in the supply of class-A drugs, the number of the young carrying knives and the rise in the number of children excluded from schools. He also believed that the problem was national as two thirds of related hospital admissions were outside of London.
The Tories deny any link between police numbers and the rise in violent crime but Hogan-Howe argued that the Government must restore police numbers. This would require an increase of 20,000 officers, to reverse the result of Tory austerity. But he also made the link between crime and social exclusion. He interviewed the head of the Southside Young Leaders Academy, who pointed out that poverty, inequality and the lack of opportunities are fuelling the rise in violent crime.
Under pressure from police chiefs and rising public anger, the Tories have called a Cobra meeting to discuss and act on this growing problem but they will do nothing towards ending the poverty and social alienation that feeds violent behaviour.
