Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
280-293)
WITNESS 1, WITNESS
2, WITNESS 3, WITNESS
4 AND WITNESS
5
24 FEBRUARY 2009
Q280 Mr Streeter: Thank you.
Witness 2: What Witness 4 said
about people coming to us saying No, it has not worked in the
past. I had the pleasure of seeing an organisation do a presentation
last Saturday, a group I am working with, and they are run by
former firm members. If you get the right sort of people, if you
have got respect, whether it be for positive or negative reasons,
talking to them, it might just work. These were all prolific offenders,
the young lads and ladies there, and they hung on to every word,
and Mark and the guys who were doing it stayed behind and chatted
to them and it did seem to get through. It is about education
that is relevant to their situation. Witness 4:
Following on a little bit from what Witness 2 has said, he hit
the nail on the head; it has got to be able to relate to the young
people's lives. That is the key. The thing is the school system
does not relate to young people's lives anyway, all of it. If
they do not do well at maths or they do not do well at history,
they are going to fall out, so they are detached mentally and
they do not feel there. If someone comes into that school environment
and it is just another one of "Don't do knife crime"
or "Don't smoke"—how long has that campaign been
going on for? I think we need a more holistic approach in a way
that can relate to them. Also I liked what Witness 3 was saying
about the environment as in meeting someone who has been in the
Army. We have a thing with people who have killed people in the
military and they can speak to the young people and say, "I
have depression", or, "I have panic attacks," and
that can be more of a deterrent. It is being a bit more creative
about this approach. The thing about it as well is it is breaking
the cycle. I think there has been a lot of research the Trust
has done about that as well. There is definitely a cycle that
is at the core, a cycle of low esteem and low confidence. That
is the issue really.
Q281 Ms Buck: Just a quick one. I
had a local community project called Uncut from my constituency
come in a couple of weeks ago and they brought a lot of young
people in and we had a very good conversation. One of the things
that came out very strongly to my surprise from the 15-16-year-olds
was that Saturday jobs did not exist any more and they could not
get any money. They wanted 20 quid in their pocket. None of this
excuses crime or anything like that but it is an issue. Having
the maturity to hold down a Saturday job, being able to legitimately
get 20 or 30 quid in your pocket, is that something that you have
ever come across or is that something you have ever heard about?
Do you think it is something we should be thinking about as part
of the range of responses?
Witness 2: I am not too sure.
When I was a kid I wanted money in my pocket and I did a paper
round. My fall into a life of crime was realising I could make
much more money running drugs and dealing in them. I do not know.
Jobs do help build character but it is finding a job that somebody
likes. If it enriches their life in any way, yes but—
Witness 3: I do agree. It is hard
to get Saturday jobs now because obviously Britain has just gone
into recession and young people are going to find it the hardest.
I have just got back into work luckily enough but it is only two
days a week. Like Witness 2 said, I used to do dodgy deals off
the back of a lorry and stuff, quick money, easy money. I know
that is not the right way to go about it but young people are
doing this because they are getting 30 or 20 quid in their pocket.
Q282 Mrs Cryer: Towards the end of
the DVD there was some talk, one or two of the contributors said
about possibly safe places where young people could go so that
they would not feel the need to carry knives. I cannot imagine
such safe places but I wonder if you can. Is there some way that
communities, the Government or schools could present safe places
after school so that kids need not carry a knife with them?
Witness 4: We had a chat outside.
We were just saying about how bad the situation is with youth
centres, especially in East London, where you can literally be
in the wrong postcode and you cannot go to a youth centre that
is half a mile at the end of your road because you are going to
get problems in there. Then the problem is the vandalism, no-one
cares, there is no ownership, and they close early as well. My
suggestion is getting youth ownership in the centre saying to
the young people if you want to do music, if you want to set up
a record label or a recording studio, put it in the centre. At
the moment all we have got are glorified baby-sitting units with
just a pool table where the cloth is broken and cues do not work
and people just vandalise it. They are under-funded. It is answering
Karen's question before—if you get the young people involved
in making an enterprise or turning it into something that they
have got ownership of, then they will feel part of it. That is
when you can really engage them so you are giving them experience
that they would not usually have. We are talking about the kind
of groups that are at risk and disadvantaged, so if they have
not done that well at school they might be better in the prize
arena so that could be something to really look at.
Q283 Mrs Cryer: You are saying if
just a room or a building was provided, not necessarily a great
deal inside it, and let the young people decide what goes into
it?
Witness 4: Exactly.
Witness 2: They can form their
own little committee and go on from there. Where we have the problem
is that all the young people who should be accessing these services
are barred from youth clubs, they are not allowed in, so they
are out there causing trouble.
Witness 3: Where I live we had
a bit of an issue with our youth club. We said to the young people
we know you have got problems between groups but when you come
into the centre just respect each other and use it properly, because
we benefit from it because we see young people off the street,
not getting into trouble by the law, but the minute we let them
go outside, it is a different matter, it is not in our hands.
It is nice that they interact maybe for just 20 minutes with each
other and speak about bits, because our policy is if you are not
nice to each other and you do not respect the building and you
do not respect others, we have to ask them to leave. It is owning
up to your human rights and respecting things.
Q284 Mrs Cryer: Just to take it a
bit further, talking about the postcodes and this question of
a safe place, I know this is cloud cuckoo land really but if parents
were to say it to their kids, "Look, we think this is a really
bad area for you and we want to move out," do you think that
most of those kids would agree and say, "Yes, I would like
to go," or do you think that is where their friends are and
they would not want to move out and despite the knives they would
want to stay there?
Witness 3: I personally moved
out. My mum did not want to move. I asked my mum nicely if we
could move because I was getting in so much trouble with the crew
I was running with. I thank her now. At the time I say, yes, I
want to move, so she moved and about two weeks later I wanted
to go back. But now I look back at it and I do thank her so much
because I am out of everything.
Q285 Tom Brake: Often when there
is a problem like knife crime people say the Government should
sort it out. In that DVD nobody said that. I think they all said
that communities should sort it out. Who do you think should sort
out this problem?
Witness 4: From my perspective
you have got the biggest influence on young people, the school.
That is the starting point. From the age of five to 16 they spend
more time there and it has got the most influence on kids what
they are going to do, and it is how are they engaging, the kind
of people who are going to carry the knives, are they engaged
at school, are they disengaged, are they disenfranchised, are
they playing truant? Do you see what I am saying? If you get the
foundations right, everyone knows. If you get the foundations
right when they are in school then it is more likely that they
are going to succeed later on in life, so I would say that for
me I got totally disengaged at school because I am dyslexic so
from there I was looking for other things to do. I would say really
foundations-wise it is really school policy, education, what is
done between the hours of nine to three, five days a week for
how many years a kid goes there.
Witness 3: I would agree with
Witness 4 that it is at school that are the foundations of getting
it right, but I have got two issues. The community should be working
together to sort out knife crime. I think it would be nice once
in a while, we say government is to blame okay, government is
not to blame, but it would be nice to see in your local area the
Government from time to time saying look, we know how bad your
issues are so we are coming down in person. We say it is the Government
but it is not the Government. If the Government are there to support
young people, say for instance all three of us run a project together,
and some MPs or the Government would like to come down and work
with young people themselves and talk to them because in that
way you get more issues and you might hear more. We can only say
certain stuff for young people. We cannot talk for all young people.
Witness 2: I agree with Witness
3 and Witness 4 totally on that in what Witness 3 was saying about
community and government. There needs to be visible, active partnership
between community groups and the Government and then people working
together.
Q286 Tom Brake: Earlier I think probably
all of you said something about the importance of having people
to work with young people for whom the young people had respect
and presumably you feel that they have an understanding of what
the challenges you face are. Surely teachers at school and Members
of Parliament are not those people, so how can they help you reform
your lives if they are people that you cannot really identify
with?
Witness 3: I can understand that
but respect works two ways. Respect does not just come over the
table. You have got to earn proper respect. My head of year at
school I really did not like him but towards the end of the year
he was the best teacher ever because he is in the TA and he talks
about knife crime, he talks about guns, he talks about issues.
Most young people respected him and if you talk about things young
people would like to do and hear from the government, okay, it
might not be the right answer sometimes but the respect will come
if you can build a bridge with them. Say, for instance, you come
to a youth club and listen to them, you are going to get respected
much more just to listen because then you can take away their
answers.
Q287 Gwyn Prosser: I found your description
earlier on about choice of weapons quite chilling, but I think
that shows the value of bringing you and your colleagues along
because we are seeing how it really happens rather than listening
to second party and third party witnesses. In your experiences,
you know the Government response very often to these matters is
partly to satisfy public opinion and the Daily Mail headlines,
so consequently it goes up to higher sentences, stiffer sentences,
a crackdown here and a crackdown there. Also I should say that
we have heard witnesses give evidence to say that well over 95%
of knife crime is detectable and convictions take place, which
is a huge proportion and it was a very high figure. If you are
out with your gang, to what extent does the thought that a) if
you do use your knife you are almost certain to be apprehended
and jailed and b) to what extent does the length o sentence have
an effect on what you do and your behaviour?
Witness 3: To be honest, you have
caught me there because there are so many different ways of punishing.
There is punishment but you have got education about the knife
crime and why they are doing it. I would say if I got caught carrying
a knife I would definitely be looking to be going to prison. That
is what I would expect. When you are in prison you meet bigger
people, you meet tougher people, and when you are in there they
tell you not to do it but some older people in prison are mentors.
Q288 Gwyn Prosser: Negative mentors?
Witness 3: No, positive monitors
because they are serving time for murder for using a knife and
they say, "If I look back now I would recommend one thing:
never ever pick up a knife and carry it on the street again."
It is like the foundations at school and things.
Q289 Chairman: What you are saying
is that going into prison means you meet people who tell you to
desist from knife crime?
Witness 3: Yes, because they are
not all bad people. Some people are in prison because they choose
to pick up a knife. Some people are there because of anger and
they just picked up the first thing they saw.
Q290 Gwyn Prosser: I would like Witness
4 and Witness 2 to comment.
Witness 4: I think basically just
what Witness 3 was saying is that we need to be a bit more creative.
Putting people in prison is not a deterrent. When you are in that
experience, when my friend got stabbed when I was with him on
the bus, the other gang came on the bus, we had a ruck, he got
stabbed, we did not realise and then afterwards because he had
been stabbed everyone was like, "We have got to get them."
It does not go through your mind at all about prison or whatever;
it does not exist.
Witness 2: Just like Witness 4
said, it does not go through your mind. When I was doing my bits
and bobs I would be more worried about the bag of gear I have
got in my pocket, not the knife. I would be worried about going
to jail for that. A knife would not cross my mind until after
the event. If people are going to get tougher sentences there
needs to be really good education, something new.
Chairman: Martin Salter has a very quick
supplementary.
Q291 Martin Salter: You were saying
in terms of positive influences in prison but something that has
concerned me for a long time is that we have an appalling recidivist
rate in this country. 70% of young people in first-time custodial
sentence go back again within two years. I am a great believer
in using former offenders as positive mentors, but on the face
of it the prison system is a pretty negative experience for young
people in that it does anything to help people turn their lives
around.
Witness 3: I can see where you
are coming from. I watched a TV programme last year and they got
former cell mates who had been in prison over 100 hours, or 100
years, between them all, one got done for burglary, one got done
for murder. They all went into the cells. There were 10 young
people before they actually got involved because they were going
down the wrong road. Youth workers recognised it and said, do
this project, go into prison voluntarily, and then they were working
with the cell mates because the cell mates are there to help young
people before they get into prison. Say for instance on this programme
I went to a prison voluntarily, I would work with another cell
member who has been in prison before, and he is there basically
as a role model before you get too far down that road.
Q292 Martin Salter: I agree with
you. I just do not think there is enough of it happening, is what
we will agree on, yes?
Witness 3: There is not enough
of that happening. If young people know they have got an issue
and know they are going down the wrong path, to stop it, even
if there were courses like going to a prison voluntarily to speak
to ex-cons for a day or something, it might help young people
understand life a bit better.
Q293 Martin Salter: We have got to
write a report on this. Is this something we could be recommending
to Government, because that is all the power we have to recommend
to Government, that young people perhaps ought to be confronted
with the consequences of their actions if they carry on down a
road and meeting people who have been there and got the T-shirt?
Witness 1: The Prince's Trust
is involved in something like that. We have got it running in
three prisons, but it is very much taking role models who are
now out who come and meet young people at the gate and support
them.
Martin Salter: I think what we would
like is some more details from the Prince's Trust on that as a
follow-up if that would be okay. Thank you so much, that is really
useful.
Chairman: If you could respond to Mr
Salter's request that would be very helpful. Thank you very much
today for coming here to share your experiences with us. It has
been extremely productive. Is this your first visit to the House
of Commons? I hope you are going to have a chance to look around,
and certainly if you are around after the next witnesses give
evidence please join me for something to drink and eat after the
session if you are able to stay. We are now going to hear evidence
in open formal session from the President of the Howard League
for Penal Reform and from a witness who is going to tell us about
his youth project in South London. If you wish to stay, please
do so at the back of the room.
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