Knife Crime - Home Affairs Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers 360-379)

WITNESS 6, WITNESS 7 AND WITNESS 8

10 MARCH 2009

  Q360  Martin Salter: You said "take them off of on residentials" and day's out and the rest of it, and that is great if young people get a day out but has it led to people taking up new hobbies, new interests? What sort of stuff that has been organised has been inspiring?

  Witness 8: It does because it allows you to mix with new people. You are able to witness or take part in new adventures or new activities which you have never even heard of or seen before.

  Q361  Martin Salter: Such as?

  Witness 8: Such as water ski-ing, dry ski-ing was it you went on?

  Witness 7: Yes, a dry ski slope, I had never done that in my life before. The first time I have ever done it was with the YIP and I thought it was an excellent thing to do. I thought it was amazing.

  Witness 8: I had never been to Rotten River. They took me to Rotten River, I had heard of it but I had never been to Rotten River. They take you to places such as the IMAX, I cannot remember where that is. A lot of trips for all ages, up to 17, because it gets you off the streets and helps a lot because it changes the attitude of people and the behaviour of people.

  Q362  Martin Salter: Do a lot of the young people you are talking about who have benefited from these activities from the YIP ever get an annual holiday?

  Witness 8: A which?

  Q363  Martin Salter: A lot of the young people you are talking about who benefit from going on these trips, do they, in the normal course of a year, get an annual holiday? Would their families take them away for a holiday or are they young people—

  Witness 7: Yes, they do go away, to be honest they go away quite a bit and it helps them quite a lot. They might have problems at home.

  Witness 8: No, I think he means—

  Q364  Martin Salter: This is family, would they go away on a family holiday?

  Witness 8: No, I would not have thought so. There are families that do go away but a lot of them do not because either they do not have the money, and that is why the people are in there, because they do not have the money and they commit crimes so they get put inside the Youth Inclusion Project to give them something, or in case they have either a disability or something. No, they do not, I do not know that many people who do go away on annual trips with the families which are in the Youth Inclusion Projects myself.

  Martin Salter: Okay. That is interesting. That is dovetails in to another piece of work we are doing. Thank you.

  Q365  Ms Buck: Is the youth activity mostly for young people who are at risk of offending or who have offended or is it open access.

  Witness 7: It is open access.

  Q366  Ms Buck: It is open access?

  Witness 7: Yes.

  Q367  Ms Buck: What kinds of numbers, you may not be able to answer this, are there lots or is it 20?

  Witness 7: I would say there is quite a lot.

  Q368  Ms Buck: There are a lot of people. I am going to ask about the research but can I ask one or two other questions arising from the things you have said. Earlier on you were talking about robbery, and the electronic devices. I think Witness 8 you said about having a phone or an MP3 or whatever. Do you have a sense of how much the problem is around robbery and taking something, taking a device that is of use or can be sold, and how much, particularly carrying weapons, is about postcode, defending your area, being part of the group? Is it mostly robbery, mostly postcodes?

  Witness 8: It is a bit of a mix because I know that I would never ever get robbed on my own estate but, yes, I have been mugged on another estate. When two gangs meet up together that is when you get all the stabbings and all the wounded because it is basically feuds. When two gangs come together you get a feud and weapons are pulled out but no-one gets mugged on their own estate, do they?

  Witness 7: No.

  Witness 8: It is only when someone is unrecognised.

  Q369  Ms Buck: Right. If it looks as though you are going through someone else's estate is it likely that if you were being robbed somebody might pull a weapon to rob you or is the robbery almost a separate issue to the feuds and the weapons?

  Witness 8: It depends really.

  Q370  Ms Buck: You cannot answer.

  Witness 7: They either pull weapons or mug you or they come in huge gangs to mug you.

  Witness 8: I have been mugged myself and that was going on to his estate and my estate and there is a place where you just do not go there because it is awful, the fighting you get. I got mugged on his estate, they tried to take my phone, which was awful so they threw it back at me. What they did, I was running, I was texting on my phone, they did not use any weapons, apart from their fists, and two of them basically battered me and tried to mug me but they did not pull any weapons on me so I cannot really say.

  Q371  Ms Buck: They just knew you were not from that estate or do people wear colours?

  Witness 8: I think it might have been a fashion.

  Witness 7: Yes, clothes as well. It is not always things that are worth money, it is what you wear. People around these areas now are all in trackies and black topped clothes. If you are wearing jeans, maybe, walking around on your own at night, there is more chance of you getting jumped just because of what you are wearing because they do not like it or they do not recognise you as one of them.

  Witness 8: If you are not part of their group wearing trackies you are seen as either an outcast or an enemy basically or the music that you listen to, it is the same for music.

  Q372  Ms Buck: Why is that so threatening, being different?

  Witness 8: It is not. It is hard to explain because there is nothing wrong with being different but other people seem to think, "They should be more like me, and they are disgusting, and those dots are horrible and they do not deserve to be here" so they try and get rid of them. Really it is not safe to be yourself.

  Q373  Ms Buck: That is a very powerful end. Witness 6, can I just ask you about the research, and could you show the Committee the top lines, really, for the research and the recommendations?

  Witness 6: Yes. I am very conscious of that last extremely powerful statement we had that it is not safe to be yourself.

  Q374  Ms Buck: Yes, very powerful point.

  Witness 6: In that context really we have done three things. We have been talking with young people around the country in high risk areas in relation to gun and knife crime, like Witness 7 and Witness 8, and some of the other young lads and a girl in Sefton but in about five different areas around the country. We have also done, together with You.Gov a statistically significant poll of 1,700 young people, that will be coming out in fact at the end of this week, beginning of next week, it will be published. That covered just over a thousand young people who were randomly selected and are representative of all young people across the country plus 700 young people who specifically come from those high risk areas which has enabled us to be quite nuanced in the analysis of that information in order to show what most young people across the country are saying and what those living in high risk areas are saying, because obviously they are facing different issues as we have just heard. The third prong of our research is that we have committed a review of all the research, the evidence from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and that too is about to come out, in to the causes of gun and knife crime and what works or does not work in terms of solutions so that is an international literature review.

  Q375  Ms Buck: Would you be kind enough to make sure that we get it?

  Witness 6: We would be delighted.

  Q376  Ms Buck: That would be very helpful.

  Witness 6: Yes, we would be delighted. Do you want to hear the headlines of those?

  Q377  Ms Buck: Yes, please.

  Witness 6: In relation to the causes, the key factors are—and this will resonate with what you have already heard this morning—environmental factors, and that relates to the territory and the nature of the financial circumstances of people living, levels of deprivation on those estates and so on, and the general tenor of the areas in terms of what the environment looks like and feels like; familial factors, so do young people feel that they are well supported by their families, they have got good role models, that their parents are there, or their carer is there for them and can help to support them and any issue of role models as well. Young people are saying that the issue around aspirations is absolutely critical and we have heard about that from Witness 7 and Witness 8 this morning, that people need aspirations, without aspirations, and a real goal and a realistic goal to strive for, that actually that can lead people into crime. The final big factor is around things to do and lack of things to do, so where there are accessible good things for young people to do, they do not find they have to hang around on street corners and then they are subject to all that goes with that, stop and search, people feeling unhappy with them being there, subject to what other young people who are in a gang or feeling aggressive might be doing and indeed they might be feeling vulnerable. In terms of solutions, the big headline that we have had from our research is that young people want those who commit violence to be off the streets, particularly obviously violent crimes. They want guns and knives to be off the streets. They are not hostile to the police, they do want the police to have a good presence but they do want the police to treat them with respect. They are quite happy with stop and search, by and large, there are obviously individual variations within that but the general tenor of what we have got back is that stop and search is fine but please can it be done respectfully really. People, as you have heard from Witness 8 this morning, they want to know why they have been stopped and there is not an inference that they are doing something wrong but it is fine. There are things to be got off the street and that is fine, they understand that. Very keen for early intervention. We have come across fantastic wisdom really coming from the young people with whom we have been talking, as you have heard this morning, that they want really what we would call early intervention and prevention initiatives to be put in place, family nurse partnerships and those kinds of things. We know there is evidence around them that they are working and they are saying, "Get in there with families with very young children, that is the place to start and then do provide sustainable on-going support for families who may be struggling. Rehabilitation and support for those who go down the long path, so to speak, there needs to be rehabilitation. There are good resettlement programmes for young people when they come out of the juvenile secure estate so that they do not return back into crime and reoffending and in that regard, again, we have had some very interesting information about what works and does not work, so restorative justice, for example, works. You will see in the research there are a number of suggestions and there is good evidence about what works and what does not. Interestingly enough, taking young people to look at prisons, a shock tactic, the evidence is that does not work, it actually leads to an increase in offending. It is very interesting to have a good look at the research. Then there has been quite a lot of talk about role models, we have had that from the young people and from the literature review. What they do not want are celebrities, they do not want David Beckham rolled out as a role model. The most important role models for them are their parents, their teachers and the police but they also want to hear from people who have been through the same experiences, maybe somebody who has taken a wrong path, they have gone into prison where there were drugs, guns, knives or whatever it might be, and they have come out, they have changed their ways, those are the kinds of people who really have an impact in terms of helping young people to understand what the impact will be on them and on their families if they go down that route themselves and to help them see there is an alternative. Then there is the issue about aspirations. Witness 7 and Witness 8 both have wonderful aspirations themselves as do the other young people in Sefton. They talk about the hope that brings and the evidence is there in all that we have done. The final thing was about things to do. It is very important that there are meaningful, accessible things for young people to do.

  Ms Buck: Thank you.

  Q378  Mr Clappison: Liverpool, a great sporting city, two good football teams, do you feel that you get enough chance to play soccer yourselves?

  Witness 7: Yes, quite a lot.

  Q379  Mr Clappison: You do?

  Witness 7: Yes.

  Witness 8: That is one of the main sports.



 
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