Panel Voices – MALTE LAUB
LET’S TALK: Police are the wrong agency
Trust an academic based at King’s College London to come up with a daft idea. Or is it? Police are the wrong agency …
Malte delivered these thoughts at the final Forum of 2019. They contain important food for thought – for all of us.
Stick to Your Guns
A young person who has been through the system gives some hard-won advice about how to follow your dreams. "I'm going to be honest with you it's really hard. But [...]
Running with the Wrong Crowd
Who are your friends? A young person talks about his experiences with hanging around with the wrong crowd. Before he realised it things got out of hand. It was only [...]
Show Respect
Doreen from Elevated Minds talks about how mutual respect comes from both sides showing respect.
How labels attached to a child can affect how other people see them
Rose from Campaign against Exclusion talks about how once a student is labelled as being in a PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) can not only affect how they see themselves but [...]
How going to a PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) can strengthen negative mindsets
Rose, a young person campaigning against school exclusions points out that young people who are sent to a PRU often feel labelled and once put on record as having attended [...]
“It’s Easy for a School to Wash their Hands…”
".....of a child that they were finding difficult" Joseph Duncan of Youth Futures comments on how schools are keen to get rid of what they see as a problem, but [...]
Exclusion – A Vicious Circle
Doreen from Elevated Minds talks about how exclusion from schools can be a self-perpetuating problem because of parents' own negative experiences with education. How do you move forwards from this [...]
Exclusion – Parents Often the Last to Know
Doreen from Elevated Minds talks about how parents are often the last people to know if a child is facing exclusion. This raises some important questions: Why? Shouldn't schools be [...]
“What can we do to help stop knife crime?”
Chris asks young people at Bede Youth Adventure Project what can be done to help stop knife crime. The children ask for more funding for youth clubs and education to [...]
Would You Talk To Your Family?
... or would you rather talk with a youth worker? In a Let's Talk session held at Bede Youth Adventure Project Chris talks to young people about how they feel [...]
Donya – Look at People from a Positive Viewpoint
Donya talks about how young people are often stereotyped or labelled and young people often feel judged by society, teachers, etc. She says it is far more positive and better [...]
Doreen Sinclair-McCollin – “Your Map Is Not Your Territory”
Doreen Sinclair-McCollin from Elevated Minds talks about the meaning for "Your Map is Not Your Territory" ahdn how she uses this phrase to help young people realise that with a [...]
James Waddington QC
I find it encouraging that knife crime is in the news. Whenever this happens, the likelihood of some change taking place dramatically increases.
History
The issue of knife crime has been in and out of the news for 55 years. Therefore, I was frustrated to hear talk in 2019 of demonising an entire generation. This is divisive and wrong. It is divisive because, cloaked in purported good intentions and glib words, it seeks to set one part of society against another. It is wrong because it has always been well known to be the case that a relatively few young people are responsible for the worst incidents. I see a lot of them. I represented them in the 1980s and 1990s. I have tried them since 2004. It is also wrong because media coverage, in highlighting the problem, dramatically increases the chances of something being done about it. This is exactly what has happened over the years.
The Prevention of Crime Act 1953 was enacted in the light of press concern about teddy boys. The topic has been in and out of the news like many other criminal behaviours ever since. Parliament has reacted by way of new legislation or increased sentences when this happens. After similar concern in the 1980s, there was the Criminal Justice Act 1988 which created offences of having a bladed article in public and also on school premises. After a period of austerity in the 1990s which like today had an impact on resources, during the 2000s, more resources were applied to policing and youth policy. In 2018, after very serious economic retrenchment, mandatory sentences of at least 6 months were introduced for second time knife offenders. The press is currently very interested in knife crime which is a serious problem. But, it is not the first time that it has been a serious problem. Probably the single biggest reason for the recent increase in murders is a lack of police presence.
There needs to be a bigger police presence on the streets with the minimum of intrusion into people’s private lives. All crime tends to go down when there are more police on the streets.
The Police need to continue to improve their relationship with the community. The police say that more work is being done on this at their end. They need to be more sensitive and also do more active work in the community. I think less stop and search is a good idea as I don’t think it is a very effective tool and it is very intrusive.
What people have to say…
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