Joint memorandum submitted by Race on
the Agenda (Building Bridges Project), Street Weapons Action Team
(SWAT) and Independent Academic Research Studies (IARS)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This submission to the Home Affairs Committee
offers an insight into understanding and addressing knife crime
from the view-point of three youth-led projects. The Building
Bridges Project (ROTA),[1]
Street Weapons Action Team (SWAT)[2]
and The Youth Empowerment Project[3]
and IARS[4]
have come together to offer a youth perspective into this important
policy debate.
This submission will address concerns around
the use of the "Stop and search" policy and tougher
sentencing for over 16's; explore the use of targeting and hotspot
areas; unpack the role of parenting; identify gaps in current
legislation; understanding and practice; and consider the role
that youth-led work can play in offering long-term preventative
solutions to all weapon-enabled crime. The overall argument of
this submission is that the use of short term, punitive responses
to knife crime will fail to stem the problem because a lack of
punishment is not the cause of knife crime. Rather long-term preventative
strategies need to be formulated alongside an assessment of the
current detrimental impact that certain criminal justice practices
have on young people, especially those from ethnic minority communities.
This submission is informed from evidence gathered
from the two-year youth led research project into gangs and the
use of weapons "Building Bridges", as well as experience
and evidence gathered from the Street Weapons Action Team and
Independent Academic Research Studies' Youth Empowerment Project.
INTRODUCTION
1. The Stop and Search Policy
There are two elements of the use of "stop
and search" that this submission wishes to address (a) the
problem with the policy itself and (b) the way in which sop and
search is administered.
(a) It is the position of this submission
that as it stands the policy of stop and search is not fit for
purpose. Home Office research has identified the limited deterrent
effect and detection rates of stop and search,[5]
and recent statistics published for Operation Blunt,[6]
which demonstrate a success rate under 3%, confirm that this remains
the case. The use of targeting areas and focusing on hotpots should
produce a higher success rate if they were effective, but at present
the results do not represent a policy which is combating weapons
crime by any significant margin. Furthermore, there needs to be
a correct assessment of the impact that searching has on isolating
and excluding groups of people, especially young people, limiting
their positive interactions with the police. The disproportionate
use of stop and search on young people, especially young black
men, leaves them over-policed and under-protected. Focus groups
with young Black men have reflected a distrust of cooperating
with police after being stopped and searched several times. This
leaves them without the option of going to police at later dates.
The policy itself needs to be re-considered, rather than just
assessing how it is implemented.
(b) However, even if given the above there
is still a case made for the use of stop and search, then this
submission would hold that the way in which the policy is implemented
needs to be addressed. At present there is no uniformity with
how stop and search is used and there are still numerous examples
of abuse of the power which breeds distrust of the police amongst
young people; if stop and search needs to be used then this must
change. This submission would recommend more opportunities for
the police to experience being searched by young people and develop
other information and experience sharing activities. This submission
also recommends that police carrying out stop and search should
do so in a more respectful manner ie explaining the reason for
the search and apologising if no weapon is found. This kind of
respectful behaviour would protect the person's right to remain
free of degrading treatment (article 3 Human Rights Act 1998).
Furthermore, this submission recommends that there is an opportunity
for those being searched to register their satisfaction, at the
point at which the search is carried out, with how they were searched.
For example, rather than remove the paperwork altogether, there
should be a tick box that a person can complete at the point of
search which would record whether they were happy with the police's
search. If a person were to state that they were not satisfied
then they should then be referred to a complaints commission to
register the complaint officially. The ease with which the police
operate to search anyone should be reflected with an easy process
for people to engage in that allows them to complain about the
manner of the search. At present the appeals process is not perceived
as efficient and therefore fails to reflect true levels of dissatisfaction.
2. Targeting and Hotspots
In addition to the above, any use of targeting
and hotspots is currently based on police intelligence which is
itself disproportionately weighted against those from ethnic minority
communities. If the intelligence is flawed then any activity that
comes out this will too be flawed. This is evidenced in the experience
of young people that there is no issue of race with regards to
violence and gang activity, and yet in statistics there is an
issue of race. It is the position of this submission that this
is because some communities are over-policed and under-protected
and others are not, that some particular communities are being
perceived as more likely to be involved with knife crime. Experiences
of knife crime in places such as Glasgow, and others that have
predominantly white populations, demonstrate that there is nothing
inherent in the culture of any ethnic group which pre-disposes
them to knife crime. Rather it is the treatment of certain groups,
as well as their experience of social exclusion and poverty, that
should be the concern of the committee. Targeting them through
the criminal justice system will only entrench their exclusion.
One way to achieving this is to over a truly multi-agency approach
to the issue; if it remains a focus of the Home Office, then any
response will be embedded in criminal justice, rather than social
justice, frameworks.
3. Sentencing
Given that gangs operate and recruit within
the prison system, extending sentencing for knife possession will
not reduce knife crime in the long term. This is not due to the
idea that prisons are like "hotels". Rather, this submission
would argue that the loss of liberty is enough punishment for
anyone, and if they would rather risk this than not carry a weapon
then we need to address why they have so little to lose or perhaps
why they do not experience liberty in the outside world. With
young people being increasingly confined to their borough, ward
or even postcode, Building Bridges identified their "ends"
have been described as their prisons, and police officers as their
wardens. Therefore, rather than seek to make prison harsher, we
should be addressing some young people's experience of liberty
instead. Until we do, no amount of sentencing will alleviate the
problem; in fact it has the potential to make it worse.
IARS young people have come up with the following
points that relate to "sentencing".
— Over use of custodial sentencing
does not work to reduce the amount of crime committed. This was
shown in the Youth Justice 10 year overview; certain young people
would re-offend time and time again with custodial sentencing
making no effect on their behaviour.
— Increased lengths of sentencing for
young people will not have the desired effect on reducing the
amount of weapon carrying because there are issues surrounding
how many young people actually learn about any changes in sentence
lengths. If they are at risk of exclusion in communities and school
then how will they learn about the increases?
— The recent change in policy from
Gordon Brown for over 16 year olds (reduced from 18) that if a
young person over 16 is found with a weapon then there is a presumption
to prosecute. This means there is an increased chance of that
young person going to prison as a child which will have negative
effects on their entire life afterwards. Rather than prosecute
and send to prison there should be more focus on other methods
for behaviour rehabilitation and for understanding what it is
about their situation that has led to such behaviour.
4. Parenting
While this submission does see some solution
in the role of parenting, we would advocate support of parents
rather than the use of sanctions against them. For some parents
the reality may be that it is perceived to be safer for their
child to be a member of a gang in their neighbourhood than to
navigate his/her environment alone. Furthermore, some parents
are at risk of violence being used against them, and there have
been reports of sexual assault of the mothers and siblings of
those involved in serious violent crime. It is not simply a case
of "better" parenting. Rather we need support of parenting
that takes into consideration the context within which some parenting
takes place; rather than advocating a one-size fits all approach
to "good" parenting.
5. Gaps in policy and practice
The fact that this inquiry focuses on a specific
weapon is itself a gap in current approaches to tackling serious
youth violence. The issues should not be so much what is being
carried than understanding why serious violence is being used,
and then tackling and addressing these causes. Current focuses
on weapons such as guns and knives have produced gaps in addressing
and understanding general serious violence; for example, there
are serious concerns around the use of rape and gang rape as a
weapon. The idea being that it is not possible to stop and search
for rape and the prosecution rates are so low that it is actually
a safer option. And yet, the root causes of such violence will
mirror much of other types of violent crime, including knife crime.
Furthermore, current policy and practice that
is endorsed from the top-down is based on a limited understanding
of the work that it taking place at grass roots level. This work
is crucial as being based within communities it possesses the
element of trust that public institutions and mainstream services
often lack. The intelligence and service delivery of grass roots
services are at best being under-used and at worst being threatened
with national and generic approaches. Advertising campaigns, such
as the "its not a good look" campaign fail to identify
with any real activity at street level and do not reflect any
understanding of the realities of serious youth violence. Furthermore
advertising campaigns often involve large sums of money that could
be better spent on grassroots groups that deal directly with the
young people these advertisements are supposed to reach.
6. Youth-led solutions
Given the above there needs to be much more
investment in youth-led work that both have the trust and understanding
of policy issues affecting young people. This is not the same
as projects which consult with or include young people; youth-led
means driven, run and delivered by young people. There is a need
for policymakers at a top level to place responses within an understanding
of the CONTEXT that young people navigate. The more youth-led
projects they consult the more complete an understanding of this
context they will have. There needs to be awareness among policymakers
of the affects that their decisions have on the lives of young
people. The three projects who offer this submission are examples
of how youth voice can be represented in policy via youth-led,
rather than youth-informed research. Issues such as the use of
rape as a weapon, the appeals of serious youth violence and the
complexities surrounding the use of stop and search are all drawn
out via a youth-led process. Service delivery projects such as
Foundation 4 Life and the Lambeth X-It Project, and policy and
research projects run by Building Bridges at ROTA, the SWAT and
IARS are all examples of positive engagement and the active empowerment
of young people. Alongside this empowerment wider stakeholders
benefit from increased understanding, engagement and access to
youth voice.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion this submission urges a re-think
of both the level of enforcement responses aimed at tackling knife
crime and, when they are used, the way in which enforcement responses
are administered. This submission recommends that a reduction
in enforcement responses would be achieved by an increased in
preventative, long-term, local, multi-agency strategies, that
were not placed within the Home Office and were informed by youth-led
research and community based service delivery. Such a response
would acknowledge, address and tackle root causes of weapon use
and all other issues directly related to such crimes.
October 2008
1 Race on the Agenda (ROTA) is a social policy think-tank
that was set up to strengthen the voice of Black, Asian and minority
ethnic communities through increased civic engagement and participation
in society. The Building Bridges Project is a youth-led research
project which is facilitated by ROTA. Back
2
The Street Weapons Action Team. Back
3
The Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) is a three year co-operative
initiative that aims to empower London's young people to influence
policy and practices that affects them through a support programme,
evidence based research and advocacy. Back
4
Independent Academic Research Studies (IARS) is a youth led social
policy think-tank that was set up in 2001 to give a voice to young
people so that they can influence social policy and democratically
engage in society as equal citizens. Back
5
Brookman, F and Maguire, M (2003) Reducing Homicide: Summary of
a review of the possibilities. Home Office RDS Occasional Paper
No 84. London: Home Office. Back
6
http://www.london.gov.uk Back
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