My friend and colleague Kit Malthouse spoke to the BBC about Ray Lewis' resignation and our future plans.
The point that he makes is a good one. We have seen some significant successes in stopping potential killers carrying knives, over 1,200 arrests and hundreds of knives taken out of circulation. What we have been doing differently, and will continue to do, is look at what leads young people to violence and deal with that too.
Unfortunately this was overshadowed by the events of the weekend. But just because the media is writing about these activities doesn't mean they're not happening.
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6 comments:
James
Where is the evidence of the 'significant successes'. These murders continue unabated?
This just proves that arresting thousands of people does little to reduce knife crime. Since Boris came to power the rate of knife crime is up in London and doctors, teachers, and many other public servants are being issued with stab vests. Of course similar vests are not being distributed to the real victims of stabbings - teenagers between the ages of 14 and 19.
It is pretty sick that with a new stabbing every week you are now telling us that there have been 'significant successes'. Maybe in a few months you can claim successes, but not now. You are just proving what we all know about politicians, you just don't live in the real world.
James
The silence is deafening.
James clearly you cannot defend the statement above. You had significant failure in tackling knife crime. Murders are up, Ray Lewis is down, the Mayors office is in dissary. Once again I ask how can you justify the statement above?
Anon,
Believe it or not my world does not revolve around replying to your comments.
We do not pretend that this will be an overnight solution, the factors building up to these most recent killings predate our administration, Livingstone did not give these crimes enough focus, preferring to blame media hype.
We are working to stop these killing, getting weapons off the streets and also looking at the root causes of this violence. It is easy (and meaningless) to look at the last two months and say that the plan isn't working. The successes are the numbers of knives now out of circulation, the number of potential killers arrested and the message that this administration will not sit back and watch the killings continue.
Quite right James. You do not need to respond to every anonymous comment on your blog, you have been elected for 4 years and you do not have to listen to anybody during that time, and certainly not respond to your constituents or the general public.
You are also correct to say that looking at the last two months and say 'the plan' isn't working is meaningless, just like it is meaningless for you to claim 'We have seen some significant successes in stopping potential killers carrying knives'. Those hundreds of knives and 1,200 arrests do not all represent a stabbing that has been prevented (you don't really think that if the arrests had not taken place that there would have been 1,200 killers?). The policing is clearly heavy handed with only a fraction of those arrested on suspicion of carrying a knife actually found to be carrying a knife, and how many prosecutions have there been for carrying an offensive weapon - "Currently, about a third of those found with offensive weapons receive only a caution or final warning". That still leaves about 1,000 potential killers on the streets.
Confiscating knives is about as effective in tackling violence on the streets as confiscating joints is in the war on drugs.
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