Knives, guns and gang culture
- Thread starter Zeppo
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kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Eons ago when Butcher's Apron used to post here, there was a similar debate about 've kids' and gangs/crime and how it's a long, historical phenomenon that goes back at least 150 years, and has largely been reported in the press in exactly the same way - hand waving/wringing depending on your political affiliation.
So it's stabbing this week. Will we be back to shooting next week, or could we get the perspective that these aren't systemic, 'all the kids are involved 'events and are actually related to small groups, often groups within groups, and thus related to specific events rather than a more generalised 'country going to the dogs' position?
Will have a hunt around for the book as well...
So it's stabbing this week. Will we be back to shooting next week, or could we get the perspective that these aren't systemic, 'all the kids are involved 'events and are actually related to small groups, often groups within groups, and thus related to specific events rather than a more generalised 'country going to the dogs' position?
Will have a hunt around for the book as well...
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
See 'Folk Scares and Moral Panics'...and just as the coverage of the shootings last month (the follow up reporting of which has been non-existant) was 'nodal', this is as well - it's a long-term theme of the press (going all the way back to mods and rockers, even before then in fact) to bang on about rabid kids and troubled youth (back in the 50s it was black bombers, bikes and flick knives, now it's skunk weed, scooters and knives/guns)...
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
You're reflective of a general feeling that society is 'more violent' that stretches back about 40 years, and that it's steadily getting more violent - which isn't borne out by any crime stats, which show that while specific crimes might spike (thefts against the person for example - since the advent of the mobile they've gone up, but take the non-mobile stuff out and it's pretty flat) generally society is safer than it was.
The Standard would ignore teenagers being killed - I don't see it covering every single child that gets run over in London for example, so unless it's newsworthy (or sits with a specific agenda, usually the publishers) it won't get in, and the death of a teenager is not always worthy.
Besides, the Standard is now little more than a commuter paper - it stopped being about London when Hastings left as editor and Dacre got his claws into it and turned it into Daily Mail Evening for the Home Counties...
The Standard would ignore teenagers being killed - I don't see it covering every single child that gets run over in London for example, so unless it's newsworthy (or sits with a specific agenda, usually the publishers) it won't get in, and the death of a teenager is not always worthy.
Besides, the Standard is now little more than a commuter paper - it stopped being about London when Hastings left as editor and Dacre got his claws into it and turned it into Daily Mail Evening for the Home Counties...
Bewcare of the SubStandard!
Got a friend who lives in europe with his family - hes back here very regularly ans alaway takes a couple of the days papers back with him ( alongside M&S sausages etc ) . His Mrs - until a few years a go - lived for 10 years on London SE13.NO problems.
They are movng back to the UK and have bought in Essex / Herts somewhere as she now thinks that London is a black hole of drive bys , gang shootings , popping caps in random strangers asses etc etc etc . She is shit scared of coming near the place.
Her views seem to be largely formed by the days evening Standard that Hubby brings home.
( I have no idea what she would think if Husband brough home the unwaveringly grim South London De-press a couple of times a week
)
She doesnt accept that its no worse ( or better ? ) than when she left..
Got a friend who lives in europe with his family - hes back here very regularly ans alaway takes a couple of the days papers back with him ( alongside M&S sausages etc ) . His Mrs - until a few years a go - lived for 10 years on London SE13.NO problems.
They are movng back to the UK and have bought in Essex / Herts somewhere as she now thinks that London is a black hole of drive bys , gang shootings , popping caps in random strangers asses etc etc etc . She is shit scared of coming near the place.
Her views seem to be largely formed by the days evening Standard that Hubby brings home.
( I have no idea what she would think if Husband brough home the unwaveringly grim South London De-press a couple of times a week
)She doesnt accept that its no worse ( or better ? ) than when she left..
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
You're not imagining it - there are more stories about it - but what you have to do is look beyond the media construction to what it's based around, and also at the connections between specific events as opposed to extratpolating the way the media do. For example, the recent shootings were almost all related to a specific group - one of the reasons that there haven't been a continuous stream of reports about it.
What's happening is that it's being reported more often - and if you think that the national press reports every murder in the UK you're very much mistaken (which is another reason the press view brings the 'feeling' that things are getting worse).
JHE u have not posted anything constructive on this thread. So let's cut the wishy washy initiative speak. Here are some carrot and stick ideas:
get crims and police into schools to talk about knives and gun crime.
put knives and violence in society into the curriculum to get over the ideas that it is wrong to carry knives and use them.
As others have said use all the agencies in this.
The stick - 10 years prison for carrying a knife, ban sales of knives to everyone under 18, 5 years in prison for supplying knives to under 18 year olds.
Security measures on buses and schools to alert whether someone is carrying a knife. Expel anyone in school for carrying a knife.
This is a practical and more so a cultural issue to get over it is not cool to carry a knife never mind kill someone. No easy answers no short term solutions.
What are your ideas?
get crims and police into schools to talk about knives and gun crime.
put knives and violence in society into the curriculum to get over the ideas that it is wrong to carry knives and use them.
As others have said use all the agencies in this.
The stick - 10 years prison for carrying a knife, ban sales of knives to everyone under 18, 5 years in prison for supplying knives to under 18 year olds.
Security measures on buses and schools to alert whether someone is carrying a knife. Expel anyone in school for carrying a knife.
This is a practical and more so a cultural issue to get over it is not cool to carry a knife never mind kill someone. No easy answers no short term solutions.
What are your ideas?
Because the number of deaths in these circumstances is relatively small, the statistics are likely to 'wobble' a lot over the short term, so you're likely to see 'spikes'. Also these events aren't all necessarily entirely unrelated to each other, so you often get spikes of violence relating to specific gangs etc.
Statistically, I think we're in a 'spike' at the moment, whether that is random, or caused by a number of related incidents, or part of a wider trend, I don't know.
I do think we are hearing about these deaths more than we normally would because the media have got their claws into it at the moment. Also the most recent victims have had glowing comments from friends and school etc - good academic record etc etc, which don't seem to be as forthcoming in every case). This both extends the amount of column inches which the stories generate and increases the moral outrage.
Thing is it is all very well arguing about whether there are more or less these incidents than there were last week, last decade or last century. Does it make any difference? People are dying NOW. Something needs to be done NOW. Not in a knee-jerk 'lets have a knife amnesty and then lie low until the media finds a new obsession' meaning of the word 'now' either. There is too much pressure to get immediate results, this situation isn't going to change over night.
Statistically, I think we're in a 'spike' at the moment, whether that is random, or caused by a number of related incidents, or part of a wider trend, I don't know.
I do think we are hearing about these deaths more than we normally would because the media have got their claws into it at the moment. Also the most recent victims have had glowing comments from friends and school etc - good academic record etc etc, which don't seem to be as forthcoming in every case). This both extends the amount of column inches which the stories generate and increases the moral outrage.
Thing is it is all very well arguing about whether there are more or less these incidents than there were last week, last decade or last century. Does it make any difference? People are dying NOW. Something needs to be done NOW. Not in a knee-jerk 'lets have a knife amnesty and then lie low until the media finds a new obsession' meaning of the word 'now' either. There is too much pressure to get immediate results, this situation isn't going to change over night.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Something of a contradiction there, methinks...
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Mrs Magpie said:
That depends on what you read, in my line of work I regular hear from/about parents with regard to this.
kyser_soze said:
what I meant was that something should be being done the address the problem - rather than pondering over 'is this getting worse, is it not?' question. 2 kids stabbed in a week is 2 too many, regardless of whether that is more or less than in the previous week.
However, just because something should be being done now, it doesn't mean to say we should be turning round in 5 mins time and saying 'has that worked yet?'.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
The thing is there's always an assumption that something can actually be done. You yourself point out that the media has it's claws into this whole narrative thread at the moment (and one it periodically returns to), so lets look at the actual numbers, look at whether these are incidents concerned with certain groups etc.
More to the point, as Cloo mentioned possibly on this thread, possible on another related one, at some point 'the kids' are going to have to start cooperating with the OB and 'The Man' in order to stop this.
More to the point, as Cloo mentioned possibly on this thread, possible on another related one, at some point 'the kids' are going to have to start cooperating with the OB and 'The Man' in order to stop this.
kyser_soze said:
One of the problems with the media getting it stuck in is that I get the impression that the problem (for the govnt etc) then becomes the media, rather than the actual issue itself - I feel they can end up looking for a solution to 'getting the problem out of the headlines' rather than tackling the root causes which probably needs a more considered longer term approach.
As for whether something can be done - surely something can be done, if the will to do it is there. It is not a completely intractable problem. Some of it is very deep rooted and difficult to deal with but I think some of it must be easier to deal with. Whilst it is not the root cause, reducing the tendancy for kids to carry knives must be part of the solution. I get the impression that whilst in some cases there seems to an intention to kill, in other cases what would otherwise have been a nasty violent scuffle ends up with a dead kid because someone had a knife on them.
Agree, but can't sit back and expect them to start doing this. Easy to say 'kids have got responsibilities' etc etc but it'll probably only get worse if there isn't some kind of intervention.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Zeppo said:
True, but equally it might give rise to violence and riot.
Off topic, but where did this 'spike' nonsense come from? It sounds suspiciously like an americanism...
Sorry, missed this post ... and I've given up posting much unless I'm specifically asked as it always seems to be interpreted as me "wading in" ...Zeppo said:
The use of stop and search could be extended by the police, even within the current guidelines. The fairly recent (last 12 months) requirement for every instance of even asking someone who they are / where they are going to be recorded in some detail (so-called "Stop and Account") has led to a reduction in all sorts of preventive activity but there is no actual reason why that should stop them - it's a lack of robust supervision and leadership by managers who allow constables to bleat about their accountability instead of encouraging them to make full use of their powers and stand up and be counted if anyone challenges them.
There are huge resourcing issues for the police service but I am not at all sure where all the coppers actually are - I heard a statistic today that only 1 in 58 uniformed constables in the Met is actually on unformed patrol duties but I am not at all sure of the veractity of that, or of it's parameters (e.g. should it also say "at any one time" or something).
As has been noted, stop and search is not a popular tactic though it is probably the only one available to the police - so if the other agencies don;t act to address the problem, the only thing the police can do is extend their stop and search activity.
Fear of being caught is definitely a deterrent (provided there is a reasonable penalty behind being caught). Stop and search is probably the only way of increasing those chances.
detective-boy said:
For that reason it is a shame that stop and search has such a bad press (although I understand something of why that has come about).
Incidentally I'm aware of some research that was done about stop & search which indicated that whilst the incidence of S&S wasn't representative of the population of an area, it was reasonable representative of the population available to be S&S'ed (ie people who were actually on the street). Sorry, bit tangental that.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
STFC said:
It depends on how the matter is approached, I would have thought.
If the current system, "stop and account" as d_b called it, was used then there probably wouldn't be any great problem, but as d_b has made clear, the current system has meant fewer stop and searches.
This fact means that if you were to attempt to use "stop and search" more widely you'd either have to put a damn site more police oficers on the street (probably unfeasible on present funding) or go back to a less accountable "stop and search" system, possibly along the old SUS lines, and if you do that it's not "a few youngsters" that get narked, it's segments of communities, as I'm sure d_b will tell you.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
RenegadeDog said:
Spikes take their name from what they look like on a graph - for example, if you were to plot all the murders in the UK over a year and the general rule was 10 per month, and then in march you had 20 murders, you'd see a spike on the chart. Pretty obvious if you've ever looked at a chart really.
These can be caused by all sorts of things, and it's only by comparing old data to establish a tend line that you can establish a spike. So in the case of last month's shootings you could either wait until the end of the year 2007 to plot a trend line, do a rolling trend line that finishes in February showing if those murders were trend or exceptional, or you could overlay the monthly totals for the last say 5 years to get a rolling average to build a trend line with.
But this is what I'm talking about WRT 'Something must be done' - at first instance you need to establish what is happening and where it fits into it's historical context. Take the issue of kids carrying knives - this was first mentioned in the press in a series of why oh why articles after a couple of kids were murdered in Manchester and knives were invovled, with much the same handwringing as is happening now. In order to work out how you proceed you first need to establish 'Are there more knife attacks/murders by X demographic'. Then you turn to anecdotal evidence to build a case for a formal quantitative study on how many kids carry knives to school and hopefully some qualitative stuff about why. You then compare this with any existing research in the area to establish a trend - is it upward or downward or showing no movement? Are incidents like this a general and widespread behaviour or is it limited to small, interrelated groups who will create statistical spikes if they kick off, but their behaviour bears no real relationship to wider society.
As for 'what is being done'...well there have been dozens of local initiatives around the UK pretty much every time kinfe crimes reaches the national papers or an especially popular person is killed (amazing how all the victims are 'popular' and 'well liked' - well clearly they aren't THAT well liked in some cases, so the need by parents and community to hallow the memory can't be discounted when establishing the 'innocence' or otherwise of the victim) and many of these campaigns have been going on for years in their local communities...so things ARE being done
There's been loads of that sort of stuff done - Marion Fitzgerald led on a lot of it whilst she was still at the Home Office. Some even showed that when street populations were taken as the basis, white youths were disproportionately stopped!beeboo said:Incidentally I'm aware of some research that was done about stop & search which indicated that whilst the incidence of S&S wasn't representative of the population of an area, it was reasonable representative of the population available to be S&S'ed (ie people who were actually on the street). Sorry, bit tangental that.
But no-one wants to hear any of that so it is largely ignored / rubbished.
In my experience the kids aren't particularly worried about the existence of proper powers - it's the attitude of the officers doing the stopping which makes all the difference.ViolentPanda said:
And it is definitely something which different parts of the community view in very different ways - sadly it has almost totemic significance to the black community now.
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