Knife Crime in the United Kingdom
 

Is the law in the uk tough enough on criminals who wield knives and take lives?

simple answer - NO

but without more detterents in place then they cant enforce any laws.
Criminals know it and act on it.

The Government in the UK have changed the method of how certain Crime is reported, In fact there are now more knife crimes that goes unpunished than ever before, But labour have only taken into account the actual Crimes which involve knives, and not the amount of times a kid has been caught with a knife, (which we all know is a crime in its own right - Carrying an offensive weapon) Thats why the totals are wrong.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2009/07/6.jpg

Also the majority of Knife carrying criminals are simply given cautions, and we all know what a waste of everyones time that is.

There should be a simple rule, nothing too complicated that will confuse, our government. Get caught with a knife = 6 Months in Prison - Simple (My 12 year old daughter, came up with that idea!!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6459265.stm

Heres a chart of Knife crime around the UK for 2007, So fare they havn't got any better.

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2009/07/7.jpg

So easy, no pussyfooting around, get caught, go to jail, whats so hard about that!!

Nope, one of my friends was threatened with a knife, he attacked the person by punching him (the person who had the knife).

He got done, due to hitting a guy under 18.. rather than the guy who had the knife.. You call that justice?

But then again, if you kill someone, you get a slap on the rist, say 24 year sentence, and 10 if your good boy? They should be hanged I'd say!

Nope. And every single person in the UK is going out murdering loads of people. Raping as they please, stealing cars and taking drugs. Then they go home and read the daily mail like nothing ever happened.

Hi Gerry, all,
Forgive my ignorance, as I am not a UK resident. But is the situation that bad or maybe you're reading to much of "The Sun" daily newspaper.

Is this due to large influx of emigrants from East European countries: Bulgaria, Romania etc..

I think it's safe to say that knife crime was always a prominent part of united kingdoms social life long before the eastern European countries were accepted into the European Union.

People that read into the newspapers too much would not have experienced knife crime, the type that sit on the fence and want all the facts published when infact the facts are manipulated by government to suit their agenda to gain an extra term in a job which brings great benefits to them.

Then you have the people that sit on the fence and don't know anything or live in the country that is being discussed that think they know it all. Probably the people that you can compare to that mother who new her daughter was being raped as a kid but did not do anything because they never had the facts to prove it. Or had the statistics written down in black and white on a A4 document.

Anyway, Knife crime was always on the rise and I can honestly say has nothing or has a minimal amount of influence from the eastern European countries entering the EU.

The law is a shambles, criminals know they'll get away with it and if they are found guilty they can put forward some kind of insanity plea or loop hole found in many of our laws to get a soft sentence and a comfy stay in prison watching tv on that 50 inch lcd screen payed by the hard earning taxpayers.

It's that bad because government have their agendas, too many judges do not pass down the appropriate punishment and too many cowards sit on the side lines and quote documents all day because they are pure cowards.

As one of our monachs would say "Off with their heads!" ;)

Ha Ha What ever happened to those good olde days :D:D:D

Regicide, mostly.

Rapscallion

Of course not. I've been discusted in our justice system since I was born! Bring back capital punishment, simple as. :D

Yeah but what do we know. We live in the uk, experience the conditions so are we really the best people to judge how the conditions really are. Maybe we are just hallucinating that knife crime related justice is a pat on the back and a comfy stay away for a few months. The people that sit on the fence seem to think they know best. thinking statistics tell the whole truth. Maybe we have found ourselves in a statistics era where people can point down (like the lottery commercial) and state "show me the statistics". :rolleyes:

Yup, they know best, we'll see if we hear what they have to say or remain fence bound with a pot of weather protecting coating to protect their own interests and ignore the real facts. :rolleyes:

It depends on what you aim to achieve in society as a whole?

Do you want to lock-up and punish young offenders (bearing in mind they probably have had exposure to violence as children - which brings into question how fair is it) or help them get established in society?

Those people you accuse of reading newspapers (:confused:) and wanting all the facts look objectively at the bigger picture, and try to balance your need for punishment and what is beneficial for society.

Speaking of which, have you been watching the documentary on channel 4 on crime in Oxford? It was quite interesting.

You seem to be quoting me alot. I'll indulge you though this time. Yes, absolutely. Young offenders should be tried and hanged. I believe a life for a life.

Remember the case of james bulger. 2 youngsters that took the 2 year old kid from the town centre and abused him sticking objects in his back end and leaving his mutilated body on the track. 8 years served in a luxury accommodations.

What do you propose? remember this 2 year old child dead. His family will never get him back again. Let's turn the nail on its head this happened to a family member of yours would you be more accommodating for rehabilitation these scums of the earth.

What you say sounds good on paper, in the real world it doesn't work. Again, you can have all the academic degrees in life and have absolutely no common sense.

I never watched the show on channel 4. I normally do watch alot of these shows but missed it on this occasion.

is there a lot of gun crime?

So I have a question...

What happens when you prosecute heavier for knife crime? Does this do anything to eliminate the motive for most crime which is poverty and lack of jobs? What happens when people switch to sticks, clubs and baseball bats? Newer laws to regulate those items? Then people will just use rocks and fists.

Somehow, there has to be a better way. When people feel they have no options and want better, as is human nature, they will resort to crime. It doesn't matter whether they have a weapon or not, they can and will resort to violence if need be.

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In the UK? Surely you jest... You can be sentenced to prison just for looking at a gun there.

Just FYI:

I read the newspapers every day. I do cheat by reading them online, but I also try to actually buy newspapers when I can, solely because they need the cash (these are desperate times for good quality newspapers), and good investigative journalism relies on good newspapers, and democracy relies on good investigative journalism. Good newspapers bring us the facts and analysis; we need to be informed.

I also have a lovely big round scar on the left side of my neck, where a London native white Brit stabbed me deeply in the neck, not with a knife but with the broken-off stem of a champagne glass, and there is a lovely 4"-long scar in a line connected to that round scar, where he dragged the glass shard trying to cut my neck wide open.

I actually, believe it or not, chased him away (quite a distance, too). Quite amazing. OTOH, when I was taken to hospital, the docs could not quite believe that the idiot had (only just) managed to idiotically miss every single large artery. I bled all over everywhere; I lost an amazing amount of blood, but I survived quite well, though I looked like Frankenstein's monster for a long while with one whole side of my neck with huge bright blue nylon stitches in it in a long line (and a whole lot more invisible small stitches actually inside the huge wound). I did lose a lot of feeling in the skin of my left neck and left shoulder, because the attacker had severed several nerves, but after 5 years I regained all feeling as the peripheral nerves slowly grew back.

I also have, from two other seperate incidents, knife scars on my left arm from warding off knives. That doesn't cover everything or every scar, but hey. I really don't think you can deny my street cred.

I also have some friends who are Brit cops, and their lives are of course filled with danger. Strangely enough, at least one of them actually likes to read newspapers (and not the horrible shock-jock tabloids, either) every day when he can too. And oh BTW, he's very good at quoting documents. And getting out on the street and putting himself in danger, to serve us and to protect the public.

You know why? Because people like us care about the society and the world we live in, and we like to keep ourselves informed.

Yeah, whatever.

I've been collecting blog links to build up a good library of British blogs from lots of police people, paramedics, one magistrate so far, one criminal defence solicitor, two prosecutors, two social workers, etc.

All those bloggers care about their society. They also do things about their society in their professional jobs. They also "quote documents" all day every day, because they have to in their jobs, and for the sake of justice, and an awful lot of us believe in real justice, not just mouthing off. And they even write documents, and they blog. And then they get out and actually physically handle nasty offenders, and they put their lives on the line (and that goes for social workers too).

Strangely enough, quite a few politicians whether left or right also care about society, and they are politicians because they want to do something for society.

So maybe one ought to be one hell of a lot more careful about whom one calls cowards here.

Gun Crime is on the increase in the UK Wayne, Nottigham, and Manchester have at least one gun related crime daily.

Its not just adults with guns but Kids too :(

I agree with you also, when society breaks down, for the reasons you explain, crime seems to prevail, The seriousness depends on the situation, but one thing is for sure, Its gonna be a long time before we resolve the issues we're facing.

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Your so Lucky Tim, I feel embarrased that something like that could happen, But things like that don't suprise me any more.

Glad to know you made it through. what was the outcome/punishment ??

Gerry :up:

When you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.

What if it soon became clear that the person didn't in fact commit the murder?
What if someone else confesed to doing it?
You would have hung him ... reminds me of the Birmingham Six.

Are you on about the two 10 year olds that killed james bulger
the guy that raped a 15 year old girl repeatable in his caravan (Had his balls chopped off). That's good justice.

Don't all goverments do this already, Casualties of war? what's the difference? explain to me what makes ones person word better than the next?

Obviously, the crime would need to be 100% certain tied to the offender being convicted. In the case of the Birmingham six this was pure neglect by the police who would tie the crime to anyone. They wanted a quick arrest and broke all the rules to get that arrest resulting in father of the innocents dieing in prison.

This is a case of serious police neglect. Sure you were posting an example though that was a bad example.

I believe the justice in the uk is piss poor as do most of the united kingdom. The system is all about prosecuting hard working people and fineing them for petty crap whilst allowing the scum of society to do the serious crimes and slapping them on the wrists.

Edit: I'm sorry to hear about that Tim and like uklive said good that you made it through. I agree the scars mentally can be there for a long time.Of course, the police will make a good solid case some of the time and put their lives at risk (no argument from me there) everyone is different police are humans only for these spineless solicitors to get them off scott free when it comes to the court date. You have the middle man serving his/her own agenda whether it's getting rich and making a fast back only to have these scums of the earth back on the street doing the same crime again and getting the same slap on the wrist justice. Simply saying that it's not always down to the policing system. Like I said Tim, good to hear you made it through though again the mental scarring is there for a long time.

IMHO the law in the UK is fine.
The punishment for some crimes is not fine.

Our courts need to stop mamby pambering and take a hard line with some criminals.
Yes knife crime punishments ought to be the same as for gun crime punishments.
Gun or Knife both weapons that are used to kill and in the UK do not need to be carried around casually or otherwise.

Increase the sentences. I'd pay more tax to fund new prisons if it were necessary.
Not too much more. :D

what? You are so confusing and your English is impossible to follow.
I am saying that the Birmingham six would have been killed had you had your way. You want capital punishment to be brought back in, remember?
I was using the Birmingham six as an example of how bad that idea is. Everybody at the time, were convinced that they planted a bomb and killed people ... but as it turns out they didn't. It doesn't matter why. The fact remains that killing someone makes you no different to the killer, and the circle of violence continues.

Anyway. The British legal system works pretty well to most people ~ hence it is still the way it is. If people didn't approve and wanted the sort of rubbish you want, then it would have been changed. But thankfully, we don't want to go back to caveman days of cutting peoples' private parts.

End of.

As ever with these things, it depends on how you evaluate the data. So lets evaluate the facts with the 'hardest line' we can: Gun Deaths. In January, it was reported that we hit a 20 year low in number of gun deaths in the UK bringing it to a whopping 42 in 2008.

Lets compare that with the number of annual deaths a year in America which offers far 'looser' gun control laws: more than 30,000 gun deaths per year.

Now, the USA is almost 5 times larger than the UK, so lets 'gross' the figures up, to get a more relative comparison: 210 gun deaths a year in the UK to more than 30,000 gun deaths a year in the USA.

Hmmmm.... I think we can all agree that is a rather noticeable gap.

Before you go all Charlton Heston on me, I agree that guns don't kill people just like nuclear weapons do not kill people. Both items however just make it far too freaking easy for a trigger happy owner to cause permenant damage in a moment of stupidity. Removing guns does not remove a morons desire to 'kill', people substitute the 'power' of a gun for the next 'best' thing: the power of a knife, brick, broken glass, whatever.

Not that I am advocating secondary weapons, but I think we can agree that there is far easier to kill someone with a gun then a secondary weapon. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that even adding deaths from these secondary weapons to the annual gun death total in the UK won't bring us anywhere in line with the USA gun death total alone.

Since you cannot legislate to remove a thugs desire to cause maximum harm with minimum risk, all you can do is try to do is maximise the penalty (and enforce it) and make it as difficult as possible to get hold of 'weapons' people might use to kill someone.

So is the reverse true then? The right to bear arms sure as hell isn't protecting the people from outlaws now so what is the alternative? If the result of tough gun control reduces gun deaths by over 99.9% per year and means that my kids don't have to walk through metal detectors to get into school then it is a pretty simple equation.

The other option is bullet control http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFcVwDw4YLE :)

Actually, in most states, it is illegal to carry a loaded firearm. One exception is Texas which loosened fiream carrying laws in 1999 and saw a decrease in violent crime by 20%. So yes, if regular citizens were allowed to carry guns more often, criminals would think twice before trying to rob, rape or beat someone.

My kids don't walk through metal detectors to get into school either. Even then that isn't a big deal. You walk through RFID scanners every day when you go to the store. A metal detector isn't any different. They can be programmed to ignore belts, jewelry and other small metallic items. Something I learned when I worked in a Juvenile Detention Facility and had to walk through metal detectors about 40 times a day. It isn't a big deal. It is also easier to conceal a silicon knife, sold at any kitchen supply store, than a gun. Lack of metal detectors doesn't mean your kids are any safer from harm.

Oh and one thing you forgot to mention is that most gun deaths in the United States are not caused by crime. They are accidental shootings and suicide. While there is nothing you can do to prevent someone from taking their own life if they are set on it, education can help with the accidental deaths. I do advocate full training and qualification for gun owners to make sure they can use the tool they purchase. This would happen before they could purchase. All of my children have cleaned, loaded, and shot guns in their lives. It is crucial education when there is the potential to be around them. No less important than driving lessons. I have been around guns all my life and have only seen a gun used to threaten another person once, even when working in the prison system. That one time was when someone was trying to break into our elderly neighbor's house with a knife. My father held the perpetrator at gunpoint until the police arrived.

I also believe that weapon control whether it be guns, knives, clubs, brass knuckles, whatever is not the answer to reducing crime. Governments need to focus on the motives for committing the crimes and eliminate them. The top motives would be hunger and poverty. Once you eliminate as many motives as you can, than you punish the ones that do it simply for greed or to cause suffering severely. You don't punish someone trying to feed his family the same way.

In a area like texas, when gun laws are looser, more good guys have guns then bad guys. They are from the south, they like guns, I don't want to profile people but it is what it is, my family is from the mid west and south and they love guns...lol

In my area of the north east, there are good guys with guns but a lot more bad guys. crime rates are crazy. In Philadelphia they have a violent gun death (or 2) daily.

Do you want a 20% reduction on 30kpa or 99.9% reduction. The problem is not gun availability or laws regarding how and when you can carry them, it is the fact that guns offer the ability far too easily of immediately, irrecoverably taking life in a split second of anger, passion or stupidity.

Take the unfortunate incident of the poster earlier talking about getting 'glassed' in the face. Transplant that incident to the US and there is a higher probability that instead of having his face sliced, it would have been shot off. It is a fallacy that 'the more people have guns the less gun crime exists' because the statistics on a global level already prove that incorrect. This line of thinking is no different than suggesting that if every country in the world were to have nuclear weapons, the world would be a safe place.

I find it odd to rationalise walking though metal detectors to enter a school. Sure it isn't a big deal to do the walking, but the point I was making had more to do with the reason they were there in the first place! Kids were taking guns into schools!

This isn't the wild west any longer. We the people do not need an amendment to ensure we can form a militia to overthrow the corrupt government. We the people need to say that enough is enough.

I am also not suggesting that the rest of the world is a crime and violence free Utopia. The suggestion is that when you remove the guns, you remove a damn huge portion of stupid deaths.

And FWIW, I live in the UK, but my first 25 years on this planet was growing up in the States where my parent (still) are gun-toting-NRA-card-carrying-pryitoutomycolddeadhands kind of folks. So I too grew up around guns and the mentality, but fortunately living the last 10 years in a country where guns are illegal has shown me how idiotic the whole concept of firearms in the 21st century really is.

We'll have to agree to disagree on United States gun laws. The topic is still United Kingdom Knife Crime which is among the highest in the world. I am still amazed that instead of incarceration, no one has tried to figure out how to lower the incidence of crime altogether. Incarceration doesn't work and then you're left with capital punishment and executions. While I am certainly aware that some crimes merit execution of the perpetrator, it has not proven to be a deterrent.

I still believe that jobs and improving the livelihood of people in crime ridden areas is the best way to reduce crime in those same areas.

So do you suggest that we give people who have been living off the state for years and have proberly given nothing back to the community they live in - big hand outs to help them better themselfs in life.
Lets build them new community centers/Youth clubs/and parks for them to vandalise or burn down when they feel like it.
And while we doing that lets forget all about the people who have worked hard all their lifes to provide their families with a little extra.


How about we do it another way - have a zero tolerance approach and should their kids or themselfs be caught carrying a knife then they will be automatically locked up for a set term regardless of circumstances.
Make parents responsible for their offspring if they under a certain age - allow the parents to use discipline as a simple telling off simply does not work.

Then we will introduce a 3 point system - 3 times before the court on certain charges and you locked up again for a set peroid.
We need to stop pussy footing about and show them we mean business.

Kids are not taught respect these days and its because of this we having the problems we see at the moment.

Not at all. Not handouts but meaningful work is the only way to make someone part of a community. Even if you're already giving them aid than put them to work making their communities better. I advocate the same thing where I live. Welfare and handouts don't provide a solution.
We have a three-strikes system here in California. With prison construction and facility costs built in, it costs over $200,000 per year per prisoner to keep them incarcerated. This is with little or no return on the dollar. On the other hand we could put 5 people to work with a livable wage with that money. On the flip side, the state spends between $5000 and $7000 per year per student in school.

In the end, all a three-strikes system does is create life long criminals who end up living on the taxpayer's dime for a very long time.

Quite possibly so. Not all people are capable of being proper parents. There should be more education in this respect so that people understand what its like to be a parent.

My english is fine, your narrow mindness is just showing through the looking glass. The reason they were imprisoned because of police neglect. If you find that impossible to understand then this is something you need to resolve within yourself and accept other peoples opinions.

Casualties of war. You think just because my stance on things change the situation of a person and more importantly an innocent person. What makes you feel that their life was worth living after the stint in prison? you think because my views on the death penalty or they would have been dead didn't ruin their life already due to police neglect I may add.

Vigilante squads is something worth pursuing, looking into or do you disagree with that? for situations where the offender received a lighter sentence but was indeed guilty.

Life for a life, bottom line. it's the way forward. :) If you find that too hard to understand or why your not following my stance on this subject then maybe purchase a copy of the collins series. ;)

There have been a few good post made on this topic, but unfortunatly there are a few members who can not have a decent discussion without making personal attacks, so unfortunatly thread closed.