An American TV correspondent talks about how the UK is trying to cope with the increase in crime among teenagers using knives, or rather, why it is not succeeding, and why Theresa May is being blamed for this. However, he points out that the number of similar crimes in Scotland is at its lowest level since the 1970s.
CNN (USA): searching for an answer to the rise in teenage crime in the UK
London. “There has been a knife crime crisis in Britain for five years now, with no solution in sight.
Rarely does a weekend go by without reports of violent attacks, and the flowers people place on the streets of London serve as a reminder of the almost daily victims.
The latest tragic incident of this kind occurred in the British capital on Bloody Friday: two teenagers died within moments of each other.
Although London has the most cases, it is a national problem. British police reported 40,577 crimes involving knives or sharp instruments last year - 10,000 more crimes than in 2011 and the fifth year in a row the number has increased.
The issue has become a political football, often attracting the attention of United States President Donald Trump, who blames London Mayor Sadiq Khan for the rise in violent crime in the British capital. Khan, for his part, points to police cuts ordered by the Conservative government, while outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May has steadfastly rejected the idea that her police cuts are to blame for the crisis.
Although the situation in this regard is getting worse, legislators and officials are favoring a random assortment of short-lived and hastily proposed approaches.
Earlier this month, one regional police department faced public ridicule for distributing blunt-tipped knives to victims of domestic violence. Police leaders believe this will reduce the risk of domestic violence.
Scott Mann, a Conservative MP, experienced something similar in March when he proposed that all knives sold in the UK should be equipped with GPS trackers.
Anne Longfield, the children's commissioner, supported the proposal to leave school doors open in the evenings and at weekends to prevent attacks, which are most likely to occur just as school closes. However, observers wonder how such a plan could work, since many schools are already struggling and facing closure due to funding cuts.
Even supermarkets, including Asda, have joined in the search for solutions to the problem and are now refusing to sell knives individually in an attempt to prevent their use in violent incidents.
London is also trialling a system to monitor offenders after they leave prison, and the Home Office announced in January that children under 12 may be subject to social media bans or curfews to prevent them to join gangs.
However, despite the measures taken, the number of crimes involving knives continues to rise. As for people who have own experience with violence, they believe that all these attempts are doomed to failure.
“The solution to the problem lies in people who do things like this.”
“We're missing the point,” said Patsy McKie, founder of Mothers Against Violence, referring to various ways solutions proposed by politicians and government officials. “They don’t have any special knowledge, and so they just check individual options... However, we need to look at these things from a different point of view.”
McKee knows violence better than most: her son Dorrie was shot dead in Manchester in 1999. "I feel severe pain regarding the death of my son, he was a part of me, he was torn away from me, and even now it is inexplicable to me,” she said in an interview with a CNN correspondent. “I don’t think there are words to express it.”
However, McKee has turned her pain into action, meeting with children as well as prisoners who have become involved in knife crime and believes that influential politicians should do the same.
“I believe the solution to this problem lies with the people who do these things,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t even understand why they did it... until you develop a deeper relationship with them.”
“Because of my openness and my answers to their questions, they start talking about what's on their minds,” she said. “I just go there and listen.”
McKee drew attention to the similarities in the fates of those young people who became involved in crime - an unstable life at home, thoughts that their peers might carry knives, the use of drugs, the desire to ease the pain. All of these things need to be taken into account when formulating top-down approaches, she said.
“These people don't really talk to young people enough,” she said and wondered, “Will they even listen to them?”
Is the practice of hasty temporary solutions caused by a reduction in the number of police officers?
A proposed approach to family crime involving knives in Nottinghamshire this month has been met with disbelief by many.
Police in a country struggling to shake off its reputation as a hotbed of violence have decided to distribute blunt-tipped knives to victims of violence, but the proposal has been heavily criticized in in social networks. In addition, some foreign publications, including the New York Times, reported about him in a mocking tone.
But for many police officers, these kinds of strange measures are an inevitable symptom of much larger problems.
"We're having a hard time keeping the 999 service running, let alone investigating crime," Apter told CNN. “We do the best we can with the little money we have - and that is why we see some initiatives as simply trying to paper over shortcomings and create the appearance of prosperity.”
The program to reduce policing was strongly supported by Theresa May, who headed the Home Office before becoming prime minister. She often argued with the Apter-led association on this issue. May steps down as prime minister next month after her party ousted her as leader for failing to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union.
But it is Theresa May's policies that Apter believes have created a culture in which government officials and politicians are forced to resort to radical short-term solutions, some of which are ridiculed as soon as they are implemented.
“The legacy that the current Prime Minister leaves behind in policing and violent crime is nothing to be proud of,” he said. “She leaves behind a broken police service.”
“In fact, in politics there is good people who want to do the right thing. But Theresa May is not one of them,” adds Apter.
“In my opinion, the best thing she did for the country was announcing that she was leaving her post,” he added.
Apter isn't the only person who blames funding cuts for the problem. Opposition lawmakers, including Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, have been equally harsh in their criticism of the policy.
“We can't help but see that the government's cuts to police and youth services, local councils and charities in the city have made it much more difficult to tackle existing problems. The cuts lead to certain consequences,” emphasized official representative Sadiq Khan in an interview with a CNN correspondent.
When a CNN correspondent reached out to the British government headquarters in Downing Street for comment, he was advised to look at previous statements. Theresa May about this question.
The British Prime Minister said on May 1, answering questions in Parliament from Corbyn, that overall “crime has dropped by a third.” In addition, she said that around £1 billion ($1.3 billion) "has been made available to police this year."
“Police officers and crime commissioners intend to recruit an additional 3 thousand police officers. In terms of tackling the problem of knives and serious crime - yes, we are concerned about that and that is why we have put forward a serious strategy to tackle violence," she added.
“We also need to tackle drug crime, we need to divert young people away from violence and we need to make sure the police and other agencies are properly equipped to do their jobs.”
But as they say, it's easier said than done, especially when funding is under such pressure, as Patrick Green reported. CEO The Ben Kinsella Trust is the leading charity in the fight against knife crime.
“If you lose police officers, if you lose your employees and youth centers, then you are creating a real cocktail for disaster,” he stressed.
“We have already seen three prime ministers, five home secretaries, two mayors of London, but we continue to face the same problems.”
“Almost all of these politicians have responded in some way to try to tackle the problem of knife crime, but it has always been reactive. We actually need to understand the underlying reasons for what is happening,” he said.
The answer to this question may be closer to home.
Scotland stops the tide
Violent crime continues to rise almost everywhere in the UK, but one part of the country is creating a very different narrative.
The murder rate in Scotland is at its lowest level since the 1970s. There, too, knives are the most common tool in violent crime, but just 59 murders were recorded north of the border last year, up from 97 a decade ago.
Such indicators are not an accident, say representatives of the Scottish authorities. They are the result of a sustained, patient approach that rejects short-term fixes, treating knife crime instead as a public health problem.
One thing that is clear to those involved in this project is that the response-based approach being taken in England shows that attitudes need to change.
“Are you trying to find a long-term solution or are you looking for a short-term solution?” asked Will Linden, deputy director of Scotland's Violence Reduction Unit, which has been working to reduce knife crime since 2005.
“There are a lot of possibilities - dull knives, GPS trackers - and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. - Linden said in a conversation with a CNN correspondent. “However, when we arrive, we ask the question: why did you even need to take a kitchen knife with you?”
“A knife is a tool,” he said. "Some people use it to cook dinner, and others use it for violence - and if that doesn't work, they use something else."
"That's why we need to deal with the issues surrounding this kind of behavior - and that requires a long-term approach," he added.
The Scottish strategy borrows heavily from plans in American cities such as Boston, which have seen a reduction in violence in recent decades. This approach involves police officers interacting directly with gang members, with a major emphasis on education, and - crucially - it took many years for improvements to become noticeable.
“These are complex issues and complex challenges that we face, and there will not be a quick fix right away,” Linden said.
But the results are now clear, and Green urges British leaders to show the same patience.
"The Scottish model has responded to the trends for a couple of reasons - people there have really embraced the model of using preventative measures as well as early intervention," he said.
"We hope the same approach will be adopted" in England, he added. “This is not about quick fixes, this is about tackling the underlying causes that are leading to the rise in knife crime.”
“The next prime minister will have to show leadership, he will have to bring all parties together and start looking for solutions to this problem beyond short-term and hasty patchwork, and we need to look for solutions that look 10, 20 years ahead,” he said. “It’s very difficult to stop a process like this immediately.”
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The most notorious cases of Great Britain remain forever on the pages of its history. The names of famous villains of the past are known not only to residents of Foggy Albion - some crimes in England received such a wide response that they are remembered and talked about all over the world.
Whitechapel Killer
London, 1880. In that terrible autumn, a killer appeared on the streets of Whitechapel, whose personality would become iconic centuries later. Dozens of films will be made about him, hundreds of books will be written, but his name will remain unknown. Despite the fact that Jack the Ripper hunted in one of the poorest areas of the city, where poverty, filth and appalling living conditions were the norm, his crimes shocked the public with their brutality.
In the 19th century, serial killers were a novelty in Britain, and according to unofficial versions, the number of Ripper victims ranges from 4 to 15. Like any Serial killer, The Ripper chose victims based on one similar feature - he hunted exclusively for prostitutes. Jack was never caught, but his case still haunts many, both professionals and amateurs, who continue to make hypotheses, trying to uncover the secret of his identity.
Body Snatchers: Burke and Her
Before the title of Britain's most famous murderer passed to Jack the Ripper, it was held by Edinburgh men William Hehr and William Burke. They were engaged in a rather profitable “business” at that time - they sold the bodies of the dead to anatomical theaters. Until the conclusion of the Anatomical Act in 1832, according to which doctors officially gained access to the bodies of beggars and vagabonds for their research, there was absolutely no one for the luminaries of medicine to practice on. Ordinary Englishmen considered a post-mortem autopsy shameful, and therefore the services of “resurrectionists” were in demand more than ever. But Berk and Hel did not want to bother with such dirty work as grave robbing. They collaborated with the doctor of the famous anatomical theater, Robert Knox, who did not ask them unnecessary questions and did not ask about the origin of suspiciously fresh dead bodies.
After a series of daring murders, Burke, Hela and Knox were exposed, and their notoriety has not faded to this day. The crimes of Burke and Hel not only went down in the history of the most notorious crimes in England, but also became a symbol of dark times and past backwardness, which a rapidly developing and progressive Great Britain should remember.
Mail Train Robbery
The 1963 mail train robbery in Great Britain is considered one of the most sensational crimes of the 20th century. Probably because the robbed train was a royal one, and the criminals managed to take away with them more than 2 million pounds sterling - $60 million by today's standards. To successfully rob a train, 15 people, 20 minutes and a changed semaphore signal were enough. During this time, the criminals uncoupled two carriages, drove them to a safe distance and opened the mail bags. This crime caused a huge outcry and jeopardized the reputation of the British police. It was a matter of honor to reveal it, and Scotland Yard coped with this task. All members of the gang, in particular its leaders, Bruce Reynolds and Ronnie Biggs, received harsh sentences and served all their sentences.
The UK has virtually no crime, this is according to statistics, but this somehow does not fit into the reports of TV news channels talking about the latest pogroms in some cities. However, let’s still believe the statistics: 1.9% of people in Britain reported that they had been victims of violence or attack for Last year, for example, in European countries this percentage is 4, the difference is significant; of course, it may seem that there are so many policemen on the city streets that hooligans simply do not even have time to twitch. Even safer countries are those with attack rates of 1.31%, 1.37, 1.5% and 1.81%.
Street crime
It is interesting that the UK is characterized by gender inequality, men here are attacked much more often than women, 3.2% and 0.8%, respectively, only in feminism has it achieved greater immunity. This also suggests that equal rights for all people in such countries are the most important social value, just short of discrimination, and this is already severely punished. The opposite situation is observed in Poland.
The number of murders per 100,000 people is a more accurate assessment of the crime rate in any country, so in the UK the murder rate is 1.2, which is slightly lower than the European average, women in this country also have this rate two times lower than men. As is known the most safe country in the world it is
On a warm July night, Member of Parliament Hugh Pilkington was returning home from the House of Commons. It's hard to say with certainty what mood he was in, but let's assume he was in a good mood. Let us also assume that at that moment Pilkington was somewhat absent-minded, because his consciousness was completely absorbed in a very serious thought of national significance and scale. And just at that second, when Pilkington had already weighed the pros and cons and was close to a conclusion, someone threw a rope around his neck and began to strangle him. The attacker apparently knew his job well, because very soon the MP’s muscles went limp and he lost consciousness.
It happened on July 17, 1862. Pilkington survived, but lost his watch. Well, anything can happen. A watch is not such a big loss, especially since a member of parliament can afford to buy a new one. However, journalists (in particular employees of The Sun, The Times and the Observer) seized on this case with such frenzy that real panic began in the British capital (this went down in history as the Garrotting Panic of 1862): the reporters were so eloquent in their description "treacherous attacks" that the inhabitants sincerely believed that the city was overrun with stranglers (garrotters).
To be fair, it is worth noting that cases of strangulation did occur, but not in such a volume as to ring the alarm bell.
In general, the crime rate in England in the 19th century was quite high. As, indeed, everywhere in those days. Let's start with the fact that in the cities there were slums (rookery), where the criminal element lived in large numbers.
London slums, 19th century.
I believe they were very similar to our Khitrovka (see Gilyarovsky). In London, one of the darkest places of this kind was “Little Ireland” (many Irish) or, as it was also called, “The Holy Land”. This enclave of lawlessness and atrocities has existed since the 17th century. By the way, in 1850, Charles Dickens, accompanied by the valiant Scotland Yard officer Inspector Field and several other policemen, made a “tour” through the most haunted places of the capital, visiting, among other things, the “Holy Land”.
Charles Dickens
He used the valuable information he received to describe the life of the “lower classes” in his novels. So the surroundings and all sorts of details in “Oliver Twist” are absolutely reliable.
Everywhere, of course, there were pickpockets, dippers, who were divided into numerous specializations.
Some (toolers), for example, only robbed women. It is noteworthy that in their gangs the thefts were mainly committed by children. They worked as follows: gang members unobtrusively surround some person. Some of them start a conversation, saying how wonderful the weather is today. The lady replies that yes, they are magnificent, not like the day before... However, she does not suspect that while this sweet dialogue is happening, the nimble boy has already stolen her wallet.
In general, the fashion of that time was very conducive to stripping young ladies: corsets and skirts with crinoline practically provided the effect of an “unfeeling body.” And cutting the purse from the belt of a lady dressed in crinoline, I think, was much easier than fishing out a banknote folded in four from the bottom of the back pocket of her jeans. But I, of course, in no way want to say that the tweezers of those times were less skilled in their craft than modern pickpockets.
There was a separate category of bandits who treated tipsy citizens (such attackers were called bug hunters). Everything was simple here: they were on duty at the pubs, waiting for a worthy and, most importantly, client who had reached the required condition to come out. The rest was a matter of technique.
There were also a kind of aristocrats of trickery. Their name was swell mob. It was not so easy to join their ranks, because for this you needed to have a decent toilet and some kind of upbringing. These guys worked in the crowd of rich people at various high-profile events (for example, Royal Ascot). It is quite obvious that the mining here was much more substantial than in the market square. But specific skills were also required here: to be able to behave correctly, to know something about manners, etiquette and... in a word, you had to look like a gentleman (square rigged). A good Russian analogue is Pyotr Ruchnikov from “The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed,” played beautifully by Evgeny Evstigneev.
There was also a “caste” of those who cleansed children (kinchin lay). This was mainly done by women with a trustworthy appearance or a respectable appearance of an old woman. “Hey boy, do you want to try some sweet candy?” The boy wants and obediently follows the generous aunt with cheerful blue eyes. But in the gateway, this kind soul undresses him to the skin (that is, literally takes off all his clothes, it was called skinning) and quickly disappears from the crime scene...
All rags were generally in good demand, because in those days people were poor, especially by modern standards, and many (even the vast majority) could only afford second-hand clothes. So there were no problems with selling stolen goods.
The authorities, of course, tried to fight crime and even achieved significant success in this difficult matter. But more on that next time.
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The issue of crime is quite relevant for many. If we look specifically at the UK, then due to the fact that the country was hit by a major economic crisis, crime in the country has increased greatly. Indeed, due to the fact that the economy is falling, many residents of the country are forced to take the path of crime in order to at least slightly improve their financial condition. Particularly common in the country are theft of personal funds and property and the many episodes of violence that accompany most theft Anti-emigrant sentiment is particularly acute in the country. If, for example, we consider criminal activities in a separate order, then the most common for the country are smuggling, drug trafficking, piracy, which most often concerns copyright, money laundering, and other methods of fraud.
It should also be noted that common problems for the country are related to arms trafficking and human trafficking, which become hostages to the sex industry.
It is also necessary to remember that each region of the country has its own specific characteristics. First of all, when visiting any country, not just the UK, you need to remember this. Even if we consider such a giant as London, visiting its central part called Westminster, which is constantly visited by many people, is not recommended, since the situation in this area is very criminal. After the central part, the former proletarian area of London, called the East End, is considered to be about as intense in terms of crime. But it's not just London that has such high crime rates. Cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool are also famous for their very tense crime situation.
To make it more convenient for people to navigate the UK, a website called “Crime Map” was created. It is worth noting that this online resource will simply an indispensable assistant for every tourist. After all, on it, in addition to many cards, which have good symbols, there are a lot of tables in which tourists can get information about the most frequently committed crimes typical for each individual part of the country. Also, if the need arises, on this Internet resource you can find not only the addresses of all points where crime-fighting units are located, but also absolutely all the emergency phone numbers that you may need.
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