Knife crime and the future of the world.
First, read this:
U.K. School Kids Strap on Stab-Proof Vests as Knife Crime Soars.
While I don’t disagree that knife crime is a serious problem, that article is sensationalist at best.
A child is stabbed to death in Britain every two weeks and knife killings outnumber gun homicides three to one, said Norman Brennan, a police officer and director of the Victims of Crime Trust.
This is simply not true, unless you only look at the time frame of the last 2 months.
Reading that article would make you assume that every school in the country is run by little gangs of kids who run around stabbing people - it’s predominantly schools in low income areas (probably, hey, I didn’t research that OK?) (and Ninja Academies, but’s it’s ok there.) and not every school has marauding gangs of teenagers roaming the playgrounds looking for people to stab.
What should we do about it though? Where does the fault lie? The parents for not instilling a better moral code in their children? The government for making disciplining your own children harder and more likely to get you banged up for child abuse or restricting the actions the police can take with juveniles for fear of reprisal through the courts as money-grabbing litigious parents look for any excuse to sue someone, when a thick ear or a kick up the arse would do? Record labels for promoting gang culture and violence through rap and R’n'b? Society for slowly becoming weaker and weaker until it is no longer able to function as a collective community police force incase screaming mobs of outraged parents break down your door or sue your ass (You leave little johnny alone! He’s troubled!)?
It’s no better anywhere else either, the whole world has become a wuss - unable to put it’s foot down and smack the legs of children who step out of line all for fear of being sued, or convicted of child cruelty. Many of my peers and probably every generation before mine were smacked on the legs or cuffed around the ear by their parents and I don’t remember rampant knife crime, promescuity or violence on this level by any people my age.
Unless you are a complete headcase, most people are ingrained with the balance of right and wrong - stabbing someone is wrong, these kids know this, yet they still do it. Bring back stricter corporal punishment, that’ll put the little b’stards straight.
Grrrrr makes me MAD!
Fin.
Update:
Someone questioned my “simply not true” statement (I never said I researched it!)
FATAL STABBINGS (ENGLAND AND WALES)
1994 - 231
1995 - 243
1996 - 197
1997 - 200
1997/8 - 202
1998/9 - 20
1999/00 - 212
2000/01 - 214
2001/02- 261
2002/03 - 266
2003/04 - 234
2004/05 - 236- from the BBC (via Phil)
I was questioning the “child stabbed to death every two weeks” statement, not the other half of the sentence, but these statistics are shocking reading, but I guess the reason that knife crime outnumbers gun crime is because knives are easier to come by than guns, they always have been and always will be - I remember buying a “Rambo” knife from the market when I was a kid, complete with compass and stitch-your-arm-back-on-after-a-200-foot-fall-through-trees sewing kit.
I never stabbed anyone, I just whittled bows and arrows (which never worked) and spears (which never worked), I never crossed my mind to stab someome as it’s WRONG.
It’s not the knives that are the problem, or the guns, or the ease in which you can get either, the real problem is the reason behind why people think they need to join gangs, be violent, “protec’ mah respec’” or whatever else there is.
phil said,
Wrote on March 23, 2007 @ 11:29 am
this was my reply to the initial blog…
I don’t disagree with most of your points at all, I agree that a tougher hand is required although I would have to say that I was taught respect and the notion of my Dad smacking the back of my legs instilled enough fear for me to behave! (most of the time).
I would however to a certain point disagree with your statement that the article is sensationalist, I do agree that the media likes to ‘make’ news and therefore will dramatise anything to make it seem more interesting than it actually is. For example, you only need to browse the BBC website or the Home Office website to find stats like these:
FATAL STABBINGS (ENGLAND AND WALES)
1994 - 231
1995 - 243
1996 - 197
1997 - 200
1997/8 - 202
1998/9 - 20
1999/00 - 212
2000/01 - 214
2001/02- 261
2002/03 - 266
2003/04 - 234
2004/05 - 236
I’m unsure what happened in 98/99 and don’t have the time to look into it (possibly a typo), but it shows a fluctuation which is certainly tipping towards increase, I’m sure 2006 and at year end 2007 will show further increased figures since there were two gangs consisting of about 100 people that clashed the other day resulting in 4 more stabbings ? remember that the figures above are only the fatalities, I haven’t been able to find ‘Non Fatal Stabbings’ yet. So let’s take the lowest figure there, 197, divide by 26 and you are left with 7.5 fatal stabbings every two weeks which doesn’t even include Scotland. Ok so this isn’t children alone but what does it matter, stabbing is stabbing and the intent behind it is to harm, children are learning this from the adults!
I would argue that every school in the UK apart from ones that mummy and daddy pay squillions for has it’s own gang of children (mind you private schools seem to be rife with drugs, alcohol and underage s*x too so I’m not excluding them), that are neglected allowed to run wild without discipline and left to learn ‘life’ all on their own, it just depends how bad the ‘fronting’ gets between rivals? The two gangs that clashed in London were aged between 12 ? 18 or there about, each opposing gang wear hats to indicate their membership (similar to the identification the South American Favela gangs use, although I guess you could claim theirs are cooler since the UK ones are using Bob the Builder or Thomas Tank Engine caps).
In complete agreement with you Mike, tougher measures have to be shown or maybe in as little as ten years, stories like the one below will plague the news, because the children of today are the gang leaders of tomorrow, and they won’t be sensational at all:
“RIO DE JANEIRO, June 27 Gang leaders had taken control of the weekend funk dances in the neighborhood, selling drugs openly and forcing young girls to have sex with them. The police had been alerted but had done nothing , so the residents of the slum known as the Favela da Grota turned, like so many others here before them, to the crusading crime reporter Tim Lopes.”
I won’t copy the whole story, but the good people living in the Favela turned to a journalist they put their trust in since the police wouldn’t do anyting, his charred camera was found and gang members were reported to have been boasting of his death ordered by their leaders.
You may currently be wondering why I’m talking about this but read on?.
The state of UK schools ? which is where children spend an extremely large percent of their time ? where a large percentage of teachers cannot control children, breed youths that are ill educated in humanitarian behaviour, the addition that the parents are either unaware of this, unable to detect it due to the neglect in their up bringing or simply just don’t care, equates to a lethal concoction of ‘dumbing down’ a major percentage of the population? at this point every one of your comments about what is effecting these children is true, but it is the responsibility of people who can see this problem to take it up and try and fix it, we cannot expect violent films to stop being produced, they get more violent, more realistic and more blood thirsty ? a child that is not taught how to depict fiction from reality cannot be expected to understand what is going on, the same way a young child does not truly understand the death of something/someone close!
I have no faith in humanity any more.
phil said,
Wrote on March 23, 2007 @ 11:36 am
I don’t disagree with most of your points at all, I agree that a tougher hand is required although I would have to say that I was taught respect and the notion of my Dad smacking the back of my legs instilled enough fear for me to behave! (most of the time).
I would however to a certain point disagree with your statement that the article is sensationalist, I do agree that the media likes to ‘make’ news and therefore will dramatise anything to make it seem more interesting than it actually is. For example, you only need to browse the BBC website or the Home Office website to find stats like these:
FATAL STABBINGS (ENGLAND AND WALES)
1994 - 231
1995 - 243
1996 - 197
1997 - 200
1997/8 - 202
1998/9 - 20
1999/00 - 212
2000/01 - 214
2001/02- 261
2002/03 - 266
2003/04 - 234
2004/05 - 236
I’m unsure what happened in 98/99 and don’t have the time to look into it (possibly a typo), but it shows a fluctuation which is certainly tipping towards increase, I’m sure 2006 and at year end 2007 will show further increased figures since there were two gangs consisting of about 100 people that clashed the other day resulting in 4 more stabbings ? remember that the figures above are only the fatalities, I haven’t been able to find ‘Non Fatal Stabbings’ yet. So let’s take the lowest figure there, 197, divide by 26 and you are left with 7.5 fatal stabbings every two weeks which doesn’t even include Scotland. Ok so this isn’t children alone but what does it matter, stabbing is stabbing and the intent behind it is to harm, children are learning this from the adults!
I would argue that every school in the UK apart from ones that mummy and daddy pay squillions for has it’s own gang of children (mind you private schools seem to be rife with drugs, alcohol and underage s*x too so I’m not excluding them), that are neglected allowed to run wild without discipline and left to learn ‘life’ all on their own, it just depends how bad the ‘fronting’ gets between rivals? The two gangs that clashed in London were aged between 12 ? 18 or there about, each opposing gang wear hats to indicate their membership (similar to the identification the South American Favela gangs use, although I guess you could claim theirs are cooler since the UK ones are using Bob the Builder or Thomas Tank Engine caps).
In complete agreement with you Mike, tougher measures have to be shown or maybe in as little as ten years, stories like the one below will plague the news, because the children of today are the gang leaders of tomorrow, and they won’t be sensational at all:
“RIO DE JANEIRO, June 27 Gang leaders had taken control of the weekend funk dances in the neighborhood, selling drugs openly and forcing young girls to have sex with them. The police had been alerted but had done nothing , so the residents of the slum known as the Favela da Grota turned, like so many others here before them, to the crusading crime reporter Tim Lopes.”
I won’t copy the whole story, but the good people living in the Favela turned to a journalist they put their trust in since the police wouldn’t do anyting, his charred camera was found and gang members were reported to have been boasting of his death ordered by their leaders.
You may currently be wondering why I’m talking about this but read on?.
The state of UK schools ? which is where children spend an extremely large percent of their time ? where a large percentage of teachers cannot control children, breed youths that are ill educated in humanitarian behaviour, the addition that the parents are either unaware of this, unable to detect it due to the neglect in their up bringing or simply just don’t care, equates to a lethal concoction of ‘dumbing down’ a major percentage of the population? at this point every one of your comments about what is effecting these children is true, but it is the responsibility of people who can see this problem to take it up and try and fix it, we cannot expect violent films to stop being produced, they get more violent, more realistic and more blood thirsty ? a child that is not taught how to depict fiction from reality cannot be expected to understand what is going on, the same way a young child does not truly understand the death of something/someone close!
I have no faith in humanity any more.