Looking behind the rise in knife crime.

We have all read and heard about the recent (and not so recent) spate of stabbings in London and in other areas around the country. While all forms of killing are awful, being stabbed must be one of the worst. It is up close, almost always premeditated and rarely a quick way to die. The brutality of it lives with both the attacker and, if they survive, the victim for the rest of their days. But what is behind this rise? The government blame everyone but themselves as usual saying it’s not all about money and everyone must step up to this scourge. Sounds good in principle but let’s take a closer look.

Since 2011, real terms spending on schools and colleges has dropped by over £7.7Bn. That is a massive drop. In terms of share of GDP, spending on education has dropped from 5.69% to 4.27%, around a 25% drop. 

That means a huge chunk of money has been taken out of education and put elsewhere. This drop in education spending means councils and headteachers have to find ways of making massive cuts in what were already tight budgets. So what gets dropped? Something has to.

Some of you might look at this graph and say that it is still higher than 20 years ago. You would be right however our society has changed. We no longer live in the cave man years of the wife and mother staying at home all the time while the husband goes to the office 9-5, then heading off the pub for a quick pint before going home to demand his dinner and ask why the kids are not already in bed. Both parents, if there are two, are more likely than ever to be in work as it is now recognised that both parents have a right to pursue a career, not just one of them. But it is also true that, due to the massive rise in the cost of living, in every area of life, but especially in the housing (both renting and buying), both parents often need to work just to make ends meet. There is also a rise in single parent families, including single parent adoptions.

With minimum wage jobs meaning some must work multiple jobs, with zero hours contracts meaning they must work strange hours and with companies pushing employees to work more and piling on the stress, they naturally have less time to spend with their children as they try to find the money for food, clothes, shelter and even to send them to school in the first place and schools, feeling the pinch, ask parents to by books and other equipment which they used to provide for free. Don’t get me wrong there are such things as bad parents as well, but the vast majority do the best they can with what little they have.

In the 90’s and early 2000’s, after school programs gave children a place to grow, learn and make friends. These are all essential things for their development. But possibly most important of all it gave them a safe environment while parents and guardians were still at work. It kept them away from gangs, it kept them from being bored while their natural play areas were being turned into car parks and student housing and it kept them under some reasonable form of adult supervision. Not supervision because we don’t trust them, but supervision so that when they misbehave, and kids do misbehave it is part of growing up, they can be guided down the right path.

That might sound a little Orwellian however if one kid hits another and no one is there to see it do you think they will do it again if no one tells them that is wrong? Children push boundaries to find their place in the world. They are not born with a moral compass, that is passed onto them by their parents, siblings, teachers and others in authority who are there to guide them through words and examples of how best to interact with and navigate the world. So if they abandoned to the streets and to the gangs and even just to each other how can we not expect more primal instincts to kick in.

The Government has said teachers must do more, parents must do more, the police must do more. What about the Government doing more, instead of less. Teachers already do an amazing job, with many giving up their free time to help children and schools in some of the poorest areas. But they need a life too. As much as teaching may be a calling to some, it is still a job and many teachers have children of their own and families and friends they need to spend time with.

So what about the police, can’t they do more? Well they have their own cuts to deal with. A drop in police numbers means fewer patrols and less public visibility. Since this Tories took office Police numbers have fallen constantly losing around 20,000 since 2009.

Those figures are for Wales and England. In Scotland the figures have been generally stable as the SNP government has used their budget to keep things stable and Northern Ireland has seen a slight drop. But as the government makes more an more cuts to budgets the figures could fall even further across all of the 4 nations of this union.

Asking an already stretched Police force to do more with less is a pointless soundbite that achieves nothing. New techniques can have a positive impact but if there is no one there to implement them how are they going to work. A visible Police presence is the most effective deterrent in this type of crime.

In recent major incidents and events, such as Climate Extinction and Trumps state visit Police forces have had to cancel leave, extend working hours and call in support from other areas of the country. This means other cases are not being progressed, areas which do still get patrols are not getting covered and if something happens elsewhere in the country the Police will not be ready for it. Does this sound like a force that is able to cope with the demands of modern-day society? But this is not an attack on our hard-working Police force itself. It is simply a realisation of the facts as they stand.

Blame for this falls at the doorstep of No 10 Downing Street. As society changes either through natural progression and evolution or the forced upon demands of an overly capitalist economy, meaning the poor work themselves to death just to survive, while the rich ship it all of shore so they don’t have to pay taxes, so to must government attitudes to spending. This whole situation can be changed for better or worse by the policies put in place by our government. So what have they done? Nothing. Not really. They stand in parliament shouting at each other about what they have done in the past or would do if they were in power. About whose fault it is but never about how they are going to solve it. Stating the same old mantra about a strong economy over and over again, while the rise of foodbanks, child poverty and violent crime is given nothing more than soundbites.

The fact is people are dying in the streets because their government has failed them. By taking money from education, the poor, police and community outreach programmes as well as selling of land where play areas and playing fields were, they have left kids with nowhere to go and no one to turn to while their parents fight to keep their families heads above the water in an overwhelming capitalist sea. It is right to say simply pouring more money into any one of them will not solve the issue, but that’s because all three require more to provide a more stable environment for our young people to live and grow. This is also not going to be solved overnight. But it must start somewhere, and reversing cuts is this start. If they were not so short-sighted, they might see that a better educated population, who have been given proper moral guidance and a place in our communities, could contribute more to society, and yes the economy, than those who have been abandoned to gangs and other criminal organisations.

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