Examination of Witness (Question Numbers
120-135)
DEPUTY ASSISTANT
COMMISSIONER ALF
HITCHCOCK
13 JANUARY 2009
Q120 Ms Buck: What is the balance
then in terms of policy, both policing and the non-policing policy
response, between trying to deal with the gang structures and
targeting individuals at risk or individuals with a past record
of violence because they are two different approaches to the problem?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
In both cases the policing approach is similar. In other words,
you are using intelligence to understand either the individuals
who are the offenders or the groups who are offenders and then
you are targeting them. I can give you the example of Operation
Alliance in south London which has used a full range of measures.
You are not necessarily arresting them for knife crime; you might
be arresting them for other things in order to disrupt their behaviour.
Where you are looking at individuals, you are looking at how risky
they are and that might be through prolific and priority offender
schemes, but you are also looking at the intelligence and looking
at prevention and enforcement targeting of them.
Q121 Bob Russell: We have been told
that some young people do not report incidents to the police because
they would be seen to be "grassing" or they do not trust
the police. Is it fair to conclude that young people carry knifes
because they do not trust the police to protect them?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
There has been quite a lot of research around why young people
carry knives. Not trusting the police does not come out as one
of the top three. The top three reasons that the young people
give are as follows. Some will say, "I'm an offender. It's
the tool of the trade. I'm going out committing crime and I need
a knife to do it," some will be as blunt as that. Some will
say it is part of being in a gang, it is part of the kudos, it
is a fashion accessory and it is about being cool. The vast majority—and
it is about 85%- will say that they are carrying it for protection.
They will say, "I don't feel safe in the area I live or where
I go and meet my friends so I am carrying it for protection."
The argument is not really that strong because there are quite
a lot of people who live in those same areas who do not carry
them and who do not get involved. What we find is that carrying
the knife gives people the propensity to think they have got a
weapon, they can get involved in violent behaviour and therefore
get themselves into trouble.
Q122 Bob Russell: Hopefully the Select
Committee will be making recommendations which will help change
those sorts of attitudes. Are there any particular steps that
you could put to us that we could then recommend to the Home Office?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
I think there are probably three things that are useful. The first
one is that I have chatted with the shadow ministers, so I have
spoken with Dominic Grieve and David Ruffley and James Brokenshire
and I have spoken with the Home Secretary, the policing minister
and the Minister of Justice and I have presented to one of the
All Party Parliamentary Committees. There is very little difference
(and I have obviously presented to one of the All Party Parliamentary
Committees) across all parties around what are the problems and
what needs to be addressed in the long term. So I believe there
is a genuine opportunity for some cross-party consensus, some
long-term planning and joined-up plans over ten to 15 years addressing
the underlying causes, education, employment, social deprivation
and so on. The second thing is that we have built a momentum in
terms of stopping young people and understand the criminal justice
elements, making them more likely to be caught and more likely
to get a sanction. That momentum must be maintained to ensure
that people know that they cannot get away with it and that those
that do carry are going to get a severe sanction. The final bit
is that throughout the tackling knives programme there has been
investment through the Department for Children, Schools and Families
into the longer-term Friday night and Saturday night sessions
for young people, diversion schemes, giving them things to do.
That money has gone in. I would hate to see that now stop. I think
there has got to be longer-term support and diversion for young
people. I think those are the three key things that will address
this issue.
Q123 Mrs Cryer: Mr Hitchcock, the
Safer School Partnerships programme apparently is improving child
safety and also the relationship between police officers and young
people. You seem to be agreeing with that.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
Absolutely.
Q124 Mrs Cryer: What plans are there
to extend the scheme to cover possibly the most senior schools?
I am not sure whether this includes primary schools or not. Perhaps
you could just comment.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
Currently on the Safer School Partnerships there are 5,300 schools
in the programme. Around 3,800 primary schools are covered within
it and 1,500 secondary schools. In terms of primary schools, that
is about 20% and in secondary schools it is about 45%. Across
London, the area which I work in my day-to-day capacity when I
am not doing the ACPO role, we would have over 200 officers engaged
at secondary school level and we have found it to be a huge success
in building the relationship, not only with the school and understanding
the problems, but also building the relationship with the young
people in those schools, the vast majority of whom are good, decent
citizens who are pleased to see a visible authority presence.
I think there is an opportunity for broadening the range within
the primary school environment because I think you learn your
behaviours within that first period. I say that having a daughter
who teaches at that level. She can already start to see some people
who display behaviours that she thinks in future years will lead
to offending patterns if not checked. I think there will be more
of an opportunity to use it in primary schools in the future.
Q125 Mrs Cryer: At the moment you
can only speak about the Met area. Can you not extend it to the
rest of the country and tell us how it is going there?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
I can because I can talk about the ten forces in the tackling
knives programme who I liaise with regularly, who are the ten
biggest forces in the country. I do not think any of the forces
that I liaise with would think that the Safer School Partnerships
and having officers working very closely with schools is not a
good idea. They all think it is good and it is working.
Q126 Mrs Cryer: And therefore want
to see it extended?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
Yes. Obviously the issue then is being able to put the officers
within that and the forces having the funding to do it.
Q127 Tom Brake: If you have had an
opportunity to talk to colleagues abroad about what they are doing
to tackle knife crime, is there anything that you have identified
that they are being much more effective at, and are there any
cultural or legal reasons why that could not be done here?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
As you are probably aware, there is a publication out today which
looks at Boston, Toronto, Amsterdam and Chicago and, having read
that document, it is surprisingly close. All of the things that
they say are good practice from abroad have been brought in under
the tackling knives action programme. That is not me saying that
there is nothing to learn, I am sure there is, and I think there
are opportunities in relation to the areas that I have spoken
about around criminal justice and about strengthening the way
in which people expect to receive sanctions. I think there are
ways perhaps that the young people are socialised that we can
look at from abroad. So I think there are opportunities to pick
up things from some of those countries.
Q128 Martin Salter: Mr Hitchcock,
I want to look at the issue of legislation. We have criminal offences
under five or six specific pieces of legislation: having an article
or blade in a public place, having an article or blade on school
premises, to sell a knife or an article with a blade to a person
under 18, et cetera. The Police Federation have argued that the
current legislative situation is incoherent and unclear; the Metropolitan
Police have argued that there is enough legislation in place already,
it does not necessarily need tightening up and, in any case, most
knives used in frenzied attacks are often the domestic kitchen
knife in the first place.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
That is correct.
Q129 Martin Salter: What is your
view on the argument that we actually need a single piece of legislation
to define what is and what is not a weapon? I say this in the
context of having seen adverts in some of the guns and shooting
press, specialist publications, actually advertising knives made
out of materials that are not subject to detection by scanners,
which is a clear attempt to play fast and lose with the law.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
Yes.
Q130 Martin Salter: I wonder if that
alone makes the case for tightening up legislation?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
I think there are always opportunities. Legislation, as you know,
always follows behind social trends and always lags society just
a little, so I think there are always opportunities for consideration
of legislation, but the legislation has been brought in, in each
case, to deal with specific things within a wider violence context,
which is why each bit sits within different pieces of legislation.
Drawing it altogether into a single new knives act, or whatever
you would want to call it, would take time and energy and not
necessarily achieve anything new, but what I do think, and one
of the things we are going to be doing within the Tackling Knives
Action Programme, is clarifying what the existing legislation
is in an easy read, easily understandable way is important without
setting up a whole new raft of legislation.
Q131 Mrs Dean: Mr Hitchcock, you
have argued for medical staff who have dealt with knife incidents
to improve data sharing with the police, and we have also heard
it suggested that communication from the police to hospitals and
other agencies could be improved. What can we do in practical
terms to improve multi-agency working to tackle knife crime?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
I think the starting point with this was particularly the lack
of data from both hospitals and the Ambulance Service was the
key, because the police had a picture from our intelligence systems
which was based on reported crime but was not the full picture
of what is going on, and we have struggled to engage health within
Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships in a way that has allowed
us to have both anonymised data and data that we can then use
to help redirect our resource. Under the Tackling Knives Action
Programme, the Department of Heath have put within the NHS Operating
Framework guidance, which now indicates that all hospitals will
do that. The result of putting it within the operating guidance,
the operating framework to all hospitals, has been that we are
now getting the data, and the number of hospitals giving us the
data is going up very quickly. Within London one hospital a week
is coming onto the data sharing scheme, and that is happening
across the nation. The other part to this was we have a set of
guidance that has been agreed with the General Medical Council
for gun crime. So if we had gunshot victims coming into hospital,
under the Caldecott principles they would report to us or would
use the Caldecott guardian to make sure that it was appropriate
to report to us, but would report to us. That same set of guidance
did not apply to knife crime. However, last year, after discussions
I had with the GMC, they have now put out guidance which aligns
it in the same way to gun crime. The NHS were the weakest link
in this and that has now been achieved, which, again, has been
one of the things that we should be proud of in relation to the
Tackling Knives programme.
Q132 Chairman: Mr Hitchcock, thank
you for giving evidence. I think the concern of the Committee
is not that you are not enthusiastic about the work, you clearly
are, and a lot of police officers all over the country are doing
their very best. Our concern is reflected in the questions about
the issue of statistics. I personally do not think it is satisfactory
that statistics should have been issued without you, as the lead
on this issue, having been consulted. Even though you were on
holiday, we still have mobile telephones that work abroad. I think
it would be helpful to the Committee if you can come back with
some better statistics for us. Mr Winnick raised the statistics
given to James Brokenshire, a Conservative spokesman, on the number
of stabbings in London, which you were not aware of. I think it
is very important that we have accurate statistics which will
help this Committee greatly in the way in which we conduct this
inquiry, and we hope that these could be forthcoming as soon as
possible. Thank you very much.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
Yes, we can do that. Finally, on the statistics, what I would
say is that communities, obviously, really do want to know the
picture, they do want to know whether what is being done is having
an impact, and that although it was considered inappropriate for
the Home Office to release those figures, what it does do is start
to tell communities what they want to know now rather than in
six months' or 12 months' time.
Q133 Chairman: We will be hearing
now from British Transport Police about their statistics, but
the fact is, have you told the Home Office that the next time
they seek to use statistics on knife crime that they should contact
you first?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
The next set of statistics are the—
Q134 Chairman: Have you told them?
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
—agreed statistics, and I am in discussions with them in
relation to that next issue of statistics.
Q135 Chairman: And you have said
that they should not issue them until you have been consulted.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hitchcock:
They are consulting me.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Thank
you so much for coming today.
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