Another day, another stabbing in the capital makes news. The latest was in Hoxton. Meanwhile, the press, politicians and police continue proffering responses to the recent increase in the number of recorded knife crime injuries among London’s under-25s following a long period of decline. As ever, these focus on whether measures to reduce such offences are “tough” enough, namely the sentences judges hand out and the constabulary’s use of stop-and-search. As ever too, less attention is given to considering what, if any, useful effects such measures actually have against this chilling form of crime.
When Boris Johnson became mayor in 2008 he instructed the Met to take action to combat a distressing spate of teenager deaths caused by knives, following a high profile campaign pledge. Under Operation Blunt 2, scanners were deployed and so-called “knife arches” installed at transport hubs to detect people carrying blades, while the use of stop-and-search was increased. Soon, it emerged that someone was being stopped and searched in London every three minutes. Johnson said he believed this had contributed to a fall in the number of knife crimes of all kinds. There were repeated mayoral boasts about thousands of knives being taken off the streets.
However, by 2011 the knife injury figures weren’t looking quite so good and it was shown by former Home Office criminologist Marian Fitzgerald that any relationship between the amount of stop-and-search taking place and the incidence of knife crime was difficult to pin down: for example, the numbers of knife crimes resulting in injuries actually rose in some boroughs where stop-and-search was used most often, and fell in some where it was used least.
Soon after, greater stress was placed on targeting stop-and-search against those deemed likely knife-carriers rather than using the tactic more randomly. This seems to have been beneficial in the sense that, as Met commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said the other week, while there is less stop-and-search than there was the number of arrests resulting from it has risen. But Fitzgerald’s 2011 analysis is worth keeping in mind when considering Hogan-Howe’s assertion that targeted stop-and-search had contributed to the long term fall in knife crime that preceded the recent rise.
Advertisement
The commissioner believes there is a case for “refocusing” the efforts of the Met’s anti-gang operations back on violence and for refining stop-and-search still more, concentrating it more precisely on those thought most likely to commit violent acts, whether with knives or anything else, in specific areas of the capital. This has been presented as contradicting Home Secretary Theresa May, who wants an overall reduction in stop-and-search. She’s said it has become an “unacceptable affront to justice,” and brought in reforms accordingly. But her position and Hogan-Howe’s aren’t inherently at odds. And the debate ought instead to be about how useful the tactic actually is or could be made to be, and whether any benefits outweigh the counterproductive resentment it can cause among innocent members of the very London communities whose support the police most need.
May is less of a civil libertarian over sentencing. She and her erstwhile Lib Dem coalition partners fell out last year over mandatory prison terms for people twice caught carrying a knife illegally. While Labour MPs backed the move, the Lib Dems opposed it. The measure was introduced by Nick de Bois, the then MP for Enfield North, who is now pressing to have it enacted (he’s described the failure of the new government to do this already as “inexplicable”). De Bois’s is a significant voice on this issue for other reasons. He lost his parliamentary seat last month, but is now chairing Zac Goldsmith’s London mayoral campaign. While at one with May on sentencing, he’s criticised her stop-and-search restrictions. At the same time, he advocates “a total commitment to prevention” involving youth workers and teachers as well as the police.
The minimum sentencing idea is not universally admired. Would it really deter the most vicious and determined and would it end up pointlessly criminalising those who carry knives more out of fear than with intent to hurt? And there are other, subtler, ways to increase the penal tariff. What’s wrong with those? A view from legal think tank Halsbury’s Law Exchange:
When politicians step on judges’ toes and fetter their discretion, the reason is usually political – “does it make a nice soundbite for the evening news?” the aides no doubt ask. Here, the answer is yes. Joe public think “tougher” sentences make for better sentencing. Regrettably, that is not always the case.
If parliament genuinely thinks the sentences for knife crime are too low, they could raise the maximum sentences from four years to seven. They could request that the Sentencing Council produce a guideline to reflect that change, and a change in attitudes towards knife crime. The effect of that would be to raise the sentencing levels. What they should not do is arbitrarily prescribe that everyone with a second knife-related conviction spend six months in prison.
We should trust the judges to determine the correct sentence; those who deserve six months will get six months, those who do not, will not. Can’t we leave the political point-scoring out of it?