A Serious Violence Strategy has been launched by Home Secretary Amber Rudd. At a speech in London she said: “This marks a major shift in the approach to recent rises in knife and gun crime and is being supported by £40m of Home Office funding. This strategy represents a real step-change in the way we think about and respond to these personal tragedies which dominate the front pages of our newspapers with seemingly depressing regularity.”
For the speech in full visit the Home Office website. She admitted that serious violence is on the rise. She pointed to “a strong link between drugs and violent crime and that changes to the drugs market appears to be the biggest driver of the increase in violent crime’.
She said: “We know that since 2014, over half of all homicides involved a victim or a suspect using or dealing drugs. We know that the use of crack-cocaine is rising in England and Wales and that there’s a strong link between violence and crack-cocaine. We also know that ‘county lines’ drug dealing has become an increasingly popular way of dealing drugs around the country. This involves gangs grooming and using children and vulnerable young people to traffic drugs using dedicated mobile phones or ‘deal lines’ into new locations outside of their home areas. The wider the reach of the gang, the further their violence, drug dealing and exploitation spreads.”
She announced that the Government will provide £3.6m to support a new National County Lines Co-ordination Centre which is being developed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the National Crime Agency (NCA). Also the Home Office plans a nationwide campaign with the crime reporting 0800 line charity Crimestoppers, to raise awareness of the problem of ‘county lines’ and to prevent and protect more people from being exploited and drawn into these gangs.
She also promised the introducing of new laws within weeks ‘that make it harder than ever before to purchase and possess guns, knives and acid. There will be new restrictions on online sales of knives to make it harder for under 18s to buy them.’
She said: “We need to engage with our young people early and to provide the incentives and credible alternatives that will prevent them from being drawn into crime in the first place. This in my view is the best long-term solution. Because what better way to stop knife crime than by stopping young people from picking up knives in the first place?”
She also mentioned the new online advertising campaign – #knife free – to raise awareness about the risks and consequences of carrying knives. As for social media companies obliged to remove violent content, or videos or messages that glorify knife crime and gangs, she’s calling on them to review their terms and conditions ‘and make it clear that that they will not host any content linked to gangs or gang violence’. She’s to convene and lead a new, cross-party Serious Violence Task Force which will bring together PCCs, representatives from the voluntary sector, local government, the police and others; and she will host an International Violent Crime Symposium.
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Simon Blackburn, Chair of the Local Government Association (LGA) Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: “One of the key successes in tackling and preventing crime in recent years has been effective partnership working at a local level between councils, the police and health service. It is good that today’s Strategy commits to providing funding to support this multi-agency work and we are pleased it places significant emphasis on the early intervention support which is vital to prevent young people becoming involved in crime in the first place.
“Council Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) have achieved huge success in working with and supporting young people to prevent them getting involved in crime, with an 85 per cent drop in First Time Entrants to the youth justice system and 74 per cent fewer young people in the average custodial population over the last decade.
“The challenge going forward will be sustaining this success, however it is not helpful that councils are still waiting to receive their youth justice grant allocations for 2018/19. This is vital funding used to support young people and help keep them away from criminality in the first place. This follows government funding for YOTs already being halved from £145m in 2010/11 to just £72m in 2017/18.
“Councils also face significant rises in demand for urgent child protection work and with a children’s services funding gap that will reach almost £2 billion by 2020, councils are increasingly having to divert funding away from preventative work into services to protect children who are at immediate risk of harm. Only with the right funding and powers can councils continue to make a difference to people’s lives by supporting families and young people and help tackle serious violent crime in our local communities.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn meanwhile hosted a roundtable with people directly affected by violent crime. He said: “We are facing a violent crime crisis in our country, ripping away young lives from our communities. Tackling this requires urgent action and fresh thinking. To do this, we must urgently listen to the communities affected and those on the frontline.
“I would like to thank everyone who took part in today’s roundtable discussion and shared their experiences. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with experts and people who have been directly affected by knife and gun violence, as we develop further policy to tackle the curse of violent crime.”
