Tougher sentencing for knife crime could reduce casualty list

Horrendous times as the knife crime casualty list for 2019 lengthens on what seems like a daily basis.
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Mrs May and her Government take time off from Brexit to hold a crisis meeting about the situation, but amidst much finger pointing does anything positive come of it? Not really.

This situation didn’t come about overnight. I believe government cuts going back decades and various policies on both sides have, to a degree, brought us to where we are today.

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A lack of consistency on the law and order side is a huge factor – years of cuts to the police have seen them become, in the eyes of the public, no longer the force they were founded to be by Sir Robert Peel.

Knife crimeKnife crime
Knife crime

On the flip side, a justice system that seems to be lacking substance when it comes to sentencing is another issue.

If parliament passed a law that says if you’re caught with a knife for immoral purposes you would go to prison for a minimum of five years, and had to serve the full 60 months, would knife crime go down?

It certainly worked with acid attacks when they started locking people up for several years.

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Another facet has to be the forgotten generation, soon to become plural.

Youth services the length and breadth of the country, but especially in the inner cities, have been consistently cut, over going back over 30 years.

Couple that with the near eradication of the great British manufacturing industry and you have a clear picture.

Under-strength policing, an ineffective justice system and a core group of young men, some approaching middle age, with no real direction or hope, effectively failed by successive governments and almost disenfranchised by society.

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Is it too late to turn things around? The fact that parliament can’t even sort out Brexit doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence, frankly.

Fund the police adequately. Punish the guilty. But, equally as importantly, invest in the future generations. Rocket science it isn’t.

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