Knife crime is at file ranges throughout the UK. SpeedKingz/Shutterstock
Knife crime hit a file excessive in England and Wales earlier than the COVID-19 lockdown got here into place – with police reporting 46,265 circumstances for the yr to March. The latest report by the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS) stated this was 51% increased in comparison with when the information was first collected in 2011.
Throughout lockdown, knife and gun crime dropped significantly, however these figures have now begun to extend with restrictions easing.
Harder sentences are sometimes touted as the reply to knife crime. There additionally appears to be the assumption that individuals who perform such crimes have forfeited their proper to political and public empathy.
The concept younger individuals ought to get a say of their punishment then, may additionally appear far fetched to some. However each younger individual has a proper to be meaningfully concerned in their very own rehabilitation.
And giving them a say on how the method works and the way it’s carried out is essential. Not least as a result of it could assist to cut back the probability they may carry or use a knife as a weapon.
Present scenario
Because it stands, youth offending groups work with younger individuals concerned in, or on the cusp of, knife-related crime, typically ordered by the courts. These groups do in-depth assessments to flag up what’s triggering younger individuals’s involvement in knife crime. They usually’ll additionally take a look at points just like the affect of childhood trauma on considering and behavior.
These groups goal to work in a collaborative approach with younger individuals to assist them change their behaviour. In principle, this might see younger individuals taking over duty for his or her studying and making choices on what subjects to cowl, or performing as spokesperson for the group in suggestions boards with their youth offending groups. However in actuality, many younger individuals don’t actually interact or contain themselves with the method of rehabilitation. They only see is as “one thing to get by means of” – as latest analysis reveals.
‘The Knife Angel’ sculpture on show at Coventry Cathedral, made up of the UK police forces confiscated knives.
NSingh Images/Shutterstock
The examine, which concerned 15 months of fieldwork between 2016-2017 with a youth offending crew in England, appeared on the extent of younger individuals’s participation within the rehabilitation course of.
It discovered that among the younger individuals merely aimed to attend conferences, placing as little as potential into the method. They have been seemingly compliant and conscious of calls for with little resistance however have been really simply going by means of the motions.
‘Recreation taking part in’
One assist employee described how some younger individuals appeared insincere – giving a misunderstanding they have been content material with their specified targets set by the youth offending crew – requiring them to finish worksheets or anger administration programs.
One other assist employee within the examine, Mason, queried whether or not workers ought to be digging beneath the floor – particularly with younger individuals who seem quietly compliant.
He defined how he felt involved the “recreation taking part in factor” of the system discouraged younger individuals from correctly participating in supervision conferences:
Do you see that strategising – is that what we rely nearly as good? Or are those who chafe towards this…is that truly extra significant? [Is] their participation, extra significant?
Jackson, one of many youth offending crew managers, defined how a variety of younger individuals simply need to full what’s required of them with none issues:
They see it as a punishment. They see us as a part of the…properly, and we’re, the officers of the court docket. And a voice of authority. They usually wanna get by means of it for six months, for 9 months, for twelve months. They don’t consider participation in a approach that, you realize…{that a} practitioner would possibly.
Certainly, throughout the examine, younger individuals beneath youth justice supervision usually didn’t need to query these in authority due to fears this might result in a delay in finishing their court docket order.
The examine additionally revealed that many younger individuals felt choices about their rehabilitation have been largely outdoors their management – as Tommy explains:
I don’t assume it’s as much as me to say that, is it? I don’t assume…I get a say in what the [youth offending team], do I?.
A collaborative method
Finally, younger individuals’s voices should not be ignored on this course of – they’ve a proper to a say about their rehabilitation. However younger individuals want extra reassurances to know they’re entitled to specific their views and that their views might be taken severely – and never used towards them.
Lots of the workers within the youth offending crew recognised that empathy and belief performs a pivotal function in bolstering younger individuals’s participation. And analysis exhibiting the transformative energy of mutually respectful relationships backs this up.
To cease younger individuals feeling disaffected then, they must be constantly extra concerned within the choice making course of surrounding their rehabilitation.
This is not going to solely assist to pave the way in which for higher ranges of engagement, however it should additionally assist to maximise younger individuals’s potential for achievement – and hopefully cut back the probability of them choosing up a weapon sooner or later.
Sean Creaney is a member of the Advisory Board at social justice charity Peer Energy Youth and a voluntary Board Director at Voice for Kids.
Jo Deakin is a member of the Analysis Advisory Group at The Howard League for Penal Reform
