Memorandum submitted by World of Hope
INTRODUCTION AND
SUMMARY
It has been a great concern to every member
of the public in the UK regarding the increase of youth knife
crime which has required a great intervention from both the government
and the communities.
Due to the awareness of the publicity from the
media centred around youth knife crime that has caused a great
loss of young stars lives, this has left families to be devastated
sometimes leading to dysfunctional families.
WORLD OF
HOPE HIGHLIGHTS
World of Hope youth and family organisation
have been carrying out Street Motivational Outreaches in the boroughs
of Southwark and Greenwich in partnership with each boroughs Metropolitan
Police. Our team sometimes have to break up gangs and sometimes
request for police patrol when required. We are also concerned
about the way our young people hang about on the streets even
late at night when they are supposed to be under the roof of their
parents or guardians. This could also be interpreted as lack of
parental support towards the young people. Also for high level
of youths carrying knives as revealed in the following quotation
which could raise a question of where do these young people get
the knives from and where do they keep these knives before using
it to stab as we all can see from the above picture of the knives
collected during an amnesty that most of these knives are not
kitchen knives even though some are kitchen knives they must have
bought it from the shops. (http://www.insight-security.com/facts-knife-crime-stats.htm
"As an example, based on one survey, a worst case projection
indicates that 60,000 young people (predominantly male) may be
stabbed and injured in the UK each year, whilst a rather more
conservative estimate could be 22,000. The discrepancy in the
two figures should not really be surprising as the figures were
derived from the questioning of around 600 under 25 year olds,
who were asked whether they had been knifed or stabbed, and then
extrapolated to provide a "National Statistic" (Governments
Offending, Crime and Justice Survey—OCJS)".
This could also be seen as lack of enough governmental
support for parents as it is very expensive to send a young person
to the university due to the eradication of student grants. In
World of Hope we have young people who aspire to further their
education up to University level but they are not able to meet
the requirement for the student loan due to their status. These
are under 20s. Most of our young people who are eligible are not
encouraged to go for student loans because of huge debts they
will incur at end of the University studies which should have
equipped them to be highly skilled professionals. Now the situation
has limited them either to stop at A level standard for odd jobs
or hanging about or committing crime as most parents claimed that
they cannot afford to pay the University fees.
In the month of June our young people from Greenwich
Council raised their concern about youth territorial conflicts
in which they felt that it was not safe to cross to another area
within the same borough while the majority claimed that there
is a big problem with post code demarcation. Due to the resources
available, World of Hope was able to support our young people
in putting together a youth lead programme that helped in addressing
the issues raised above. There were three weekend football tournaments
followed by a one day award ceremony in which we invited different
guest speakers. Amongst our speakers, included a young man from
the prison who came to address our young people on his bad experience
in the prison which led our young people to feed back afterwards
that they were touched and concluded that prison is not the place
to be. It shows here that educating young people will help with
their mind set as it takes a thought before an action is carried
out. To achieve this with our young people it will require enough
resources.
MEDIA PORTRAYAL
AND NEED
OF BALANCE
There is an element of negative effect of media
coverage in which there is too much attention and publicity towards
the youth crime without balancing it with a way to publicise the
young people who have made a great effort to be outstanding achievers.
It has been obviously noted by World of Hope and other youth organisations
that have supported young people to put together positive projects
within their communities. Despite their efforts to get their good
work noted and publicised the media will rather go for the young
people who will be involved in criminal activities that will cover
the front page of their news papers. This could be seen as a better
way for young people to get attention from the public. To do something
about this problem World of Hope has put forward an initiative
to House of Parliament Peer outreach, Mayor of London and Metropolitan
Police Authority to have a week of celebration for youth achievers
nationally. Please see a copy of the proposal attached, all MPs
support is requested.
PENALTY FOR
CARRYING KNIVES
It shows that the maximum penalty for carrying
knives is four years in prison and a fine of £5,000.00. This
means around every four in 10 of young people according to the
statistics above is in prison or will end up in prison. Is this
what we want or all of us will take responsibility to work, support,
coach, educate and mentor these our young people our tomorrow's
leaders and future to stop having criminal records and live fulfilled
lives. To achieve this everybody including the government has
a vital role to play. There is a shortage of satisfactory youth
facilities, lack of funding, not enough educational activities
to help young people psychologically build their confidence, not
enough support work with parents, University fees is a big barrier
to our young people's further education to increase youth professionals
and reduce youth crime. Moreover there is a great need to identify,
celebrate and award the good headed young people rather than all
the time focusing on the ones engaging in crime. Moreover shops
that bridge the by selling knives or other dangerous weapons to
underage should face the law as this is becoming a trendy thing,
please see the front page of Greenwich Time No 21, 7 October
2008. "Stores selling knives illegally are named and shamed".
World of Hope and its entire team and young
people would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to
be relevant to our community. Our young people are more than happy
to be part of the oral inquiry.
We hope this will help in dealing with youth
knife crime and away forward to help save the future of our young
people.
October 2008
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