POLICE chiefs in England are aiming to copy Scottish success by using a public health approach to reduce knife crime.
Action taken north of the Border, where Glasgow was once dubbed the murder capital of Europe, has seen the number of homicides drop by 39% in a decade.
The fundamental idea is that violent crime should be treated like a disease, which means tackling the causes as well as the consequences to prevent it spreading. In 2005, after 137 murders in a year in Scotland, including 41 in Glasgow alone, a violence reduction unit (VRU) was set up by Strathclyde Police in a bid to reduce the bloodshed.
In addition to traditional law enforcement methods, including the fingerprint and DNA testing of all knife carriers, the team’s new approach was to work with teams in fields such as social work, health and education.
The following year, the VRU became a national unit and it has continued, with a current annual budget of around £1 million, to back a wide variety of initiatives. These include offering young people at risk of being drawn into violent crime, or who already have convictions, alternatives such as training, jobs and youth clubs.
There are also schemes that support parents, aim to reduce domestic violence – a key cause for children who go on to commit violent crime – and tackle alcohol abuse.
It also aims to gather better data on injuries to identify new trends in violence at an early stage and intervene.
London has set up its own violence reduction unit to bring together the police, health workers and staff from local councils, and Home Secretary Sajid Javid is backing the public health approach nationally.
Last month English Health Secretary Matt Hancock flew in the face of expert opinion by arguing against the idea.
He told LBC: “If you try to say it’s a public health issue, that implies it’s nobody’s fault. The criminals are the murderers. It’s their fault. You have got to start from the point of the perpetrator being brought to justice.”
There were 39,818 knife crime offences in England and Wales in the 12 months to September 2018, and 285 people were killed in 2017-18.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here