Another teenager dies in knife attack (East London)

[agricola]

I'm not usually a woolly liberal, but this time I will be. Locking up kids for mere possession of knives is a no brainer, they'll only learn more crimes in detention centres/ prisons. We need to get to the heart of the reason they need to carry them.

These arent kids merely carrying around knives, these are "kids" who are beating up people, robbing them, stealing, selling drugs, or any combination of those.

Personally, until someone can come up with an actual way of "getting to the heart of the reason" why all this happens the safest (which is of course the best) way of dealing with this is to approach every incident of knife violence, or for that matter street robbery, with sentences that are close to, if not dead on, the maximum allowable terms of imprisonment.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

ffs, radio this morning says that a 13 year old boy has been charged with this murder. 13 years old.

That's younger than my son and it really brings it home how truly fucked up this is. Being selfish about it, i'm so glad that their ma took them off to cornwall a few years back just so that he's away from peers who appear to be able to kill so easily.

But what the fuck is going on with the parents of these kids? Where are they, what influence do they have over their kids - do they have any influence or interest in their kids? Is it a lack of fathering, a lack of respect for life, or the 'get rich or die trying' attitude engendered in the musical culture which seems to overlay a lot of this? Jesus, what a start to the week eh?

 

[detective-boy]

These arent kids merely carrying around knives....

Some of them aren't ... but I suspect a reasonable number are.

There was recently some work done about bullying in schools, where the bullies were subtle and went about their work over a long period of time, finally causing their victim to explode and do something massive and obvious in response. Almost always this led to the victim (now portrayed as some violent thug) being expelled.

This happens on the street as well. Long periods of low level crime against repeat victims (e.g. "taxing") eventually cause an explosive response and they end up stabbing the aggressor. This is one aspect of the media hype which concerns me - is it encouraging these victims to carry / use a knife as it increases their fears of crime and emphasises their inability to protect themselves otherwise?

 

[Blagsta]

These arent kids merely carrying around knives, these are "kids" who are beating up people, robbing them, stealing, selling drugs, or any combination of those.

They're still children.

 

[agricola]

Some of them aren't ... but I suspect a reasonable number are.

There was recently some work done about bullying in schools, where the bullies were subtle and went about their work over a long period of time, finally causing their victim to explode and do something massive and obvious in response. Almost always this led to the victim (now portrayed as some violent thug) being expelled.

This happens on the street as well. Long periods of low level crime against repeat victims (e.g. "taxing") eventually cause an explosive response and they end up stabbing the aggressor. This is one aspect of the media hype which concerns me - is it encouraging these victims to carry / use a knife as it increases their fears of crime and emphasises their inability to protect themselves otherwise?

I dont think it is - lets face it, the media hype is only a fairly recent phenomenon, and these kids will have been arming themselves before it all blew up. In addition, I am unaware (indeed we all will be until trials) that any of these incidents are committed by people who were bullied against the bully.

One might also point to the almost complete uselessness of youth justice when it comes to dealing with crimes committed by, and committed against, young people. Even crimes of quite remarkable seriousness and evil escape appropriate punishment, largely because of the age of the defendants - as the family of Pc Daniel Coffill have found out.

 

[detective-boy]

One might also point to the almost complete uselessness of youth justice when it comes to dealing with crimes committed by, and committed against, young people.

I have elsewhere. The only threat the police can (and should) legitimately represent is one of being caught and prosecuted.

If that process holds no fear for the offenders (as seems to be the case for increasing numbers of youths) then any police activity is rendered meaningless.

 

[agricola]

I have elsewhere. The only threat the police can (and should) legitimately represent is one of being caught and prosecuted.

If that process holds no fear for the offenders (as seems to be the case for increasing numbers of youths) then any police activity is rendered meaningless.

Exactly. To fix that will require a sea-change in the Home Office, or whichever of the successor departments ends up with it though.

They're still children.

True, but then this situation (and I am not talking about these stabbings, but youth justice generally) cannot go on, the youth justice system is a total farce and it must get a large proportion of the blame for all of this.

 

[LDR]

We've just had a couple of lovely policewomen round interviewing us about the murder.

They spent a good forty minutes asking questions and so forth.