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with 'SWINDON NEWS'
Knife crime blitz targets schools
1:18pm Wednesday 16th July 2008
Check the latest crime figures in
Swindon
DANGERS of carrying a knife have been hammered home to 10-year-olds in Swindon.
The Swindon Youth Offending Team instigated an education scheme after realising that lessons used to stop young offenders from carrying blades could also help do the same for schoolchildren who may be carrying them for protection.
The team has already visited secondary schools, including Headlands and St Joseph's, during this year's Justice Week and Knife Amnesty Week - and plan to visit many more in the future.
Organisers of the sessions say that the scheme has been well received by pupils and believe that if the end result is kids carrying less knives, then its job has been done.
Kevin Leaning, head of service for the youth offending team, says kids may carry knives to gain street credibility but are actually putting themselves at risk.
He believes the consequences of carrying knives can be catastrophic, as usually they are more dangerous than guns.
He said: "When people use guns they are more likely to shoot from far away and miss their targets.
"However, when they use knives they do so from up close and usually hit their targets.
"Often times the people stabbed don't know they have been hit, thinking it was a punch, which means they can bleed to death much easier.
"It is vital that children are able to hear information like this because otherwise they may never know.
"Information like this can help save lives. Bringing it to pupils in a beneficial way is not only useful, it is important for the future."
Police Sergeant Julian Riches says the team has a responsibility to bring the message to youths in the community.
He said: "The aim of the programme is to educate them about the dangers of carrying, let alone using, knives or firearms.
"They often have no idea of the medical risks involved or the fact that families can be affected for years to come.
"These factors are more relevant to young people who do not see prison sentences as a deterrent, even though a sentence given out by court can be really punishing."
Other officers on the Youth Offending Team have also been teaching police officers and community support officers around Swindon.
As a result of this specialist training the police officers will be visiting schools and community groups to speak to the young people in their area.
Anyone interested in finding out more is asked to call Julian on 01793 823153.
Your Say YourSwindon
LordBelacqua, Swindon says...
1:45pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Mumstheword, Walcot says...
1:46pm Wed 16 Jul 08
LordBelacqua, Swindon says...
1:51pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Mumstheword wrote:As in, a proper knife? Like a kitchen knife? Cutlery knives don't really count, they can barely cut sausages - but a proper pointed knife?
I have known of an eight year old in Swindon who took a knife to school.
emmylou83, Stratton says...
1:54pm Wed 16 Jul 08
LordBelacqua wrote:had to reread that more than once lordb all knives are dangerous, wasn't there a story in the news the other month about a woman who shopped her son to the police because he had a cutlery knife as a weapon or somehting?
Mumstheword wrote: I have known of an eight year old in Swindon who took a knife to school.As in, a proper knife? Like a kitchen knife? Cutlery knives don't really count, they can barely cut sausages - but a proper pointed knife?
LordBelacqua, Swindon says...
1:56pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Mumstheword, Walcot says...
1:56pm Wed 16 Jul 08
emmylou83, Stratton says...
1:59pm Wed 16 Jul 08
LordBelacqua wrote:i don't know but i've cut myself on a normal knife before it hurts :o(
How was he going to hurt someone with a blunt-ended, barely-sharpened knife?
Grumpy old man, Swindon says...
1:59pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Allow me to explain. Many kids will be carrying knives because they've been told NOT to, and therefore because they are rebelling against authority they will carry one. So if the government bans/condemns corks which generally do no-one any harm at all, all the youths will want to carry corks and will forget all about knives.
Basically it is now "cool" to carry a knife because of the harm this government and the media have done by advertising the problem so widely.
Surely this is obvious to anyone who has ever rebelled against an authority figure, whether dying hair pink or getting earrings or whatever!?
BWB, SWINDON says...
2:01pm Wed 16 Jul 08
If he is as good at this as he was on the beat,then its money wasted. Also in todays paper,quote..
Police to be given three hours to respond to an emergency. And two to three days for non emergency crime.
Just thought id slip that in.
LordBelacqua, Swindon says...
2:05pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Mumstheword wrote:Why, and how? What on earth were her parents thinking leaving one where she could get hold of it?
This was not a cutlery knife. It was a penknife and it was sharp. She was running around the playground with it in her coat pocket.
Mumstheword, Walcot says...
2:07pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Like your cork idea, as long as the buggers dont carry the cork screw as well :)
emmylou83, Stratton says...
2:08pm Wed 16 Jul 08
LordBelacqua wrote:Children are sneaky bugg*rs when I was on teaching practice in london I confiscated a lighter from a 6yr old obviously had to have the chat with the parents and the parents said they lighter was kept on a high shelf out of reach and the child admitted to making a tower out of boxes to get it, the parents had no idea it had gone
Mumstheword wrote: This was not a cutlery knife. It was a penknife and it was sharp. She was running around the playground with it in her coat pocket.Why, and how? What on earth were her parents thinking leaving one where she could get hold of it?
Mumstheword, Walcot says...
2:11pm Wed 16 Jul 08
I found out and went straight around to tell her mum who was very shocked and upset. I hope that all concerned learnt a lesson and it doesn't happen again.
LordBelacqua, Swindon says...
2:14pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Frontier(s), says...
2:19pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Whether we like (or understand) it or not, it's now 'cool' for young people (including small children) to carry knives - and to use those knives.
No amount of sermons, talks and cosy chats will change that.
The only way it will become 'not cool' to carry a knife is when kids see a few of their friends put in prison for five or six years merely for carrying one.
Of course, Labour will never do that, so expect the daily stabbings and deaths we see in London, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool and elsewhere to spread across the country.
This government have been uniquely impotent when it comes to crime and this latest rise in knife crime will simply be the latest in a long line of areas that they'll fail to tackle properly.
Frontier(s), says...
2:22pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Violence against the person UP 14.2%
Sexual offences UP 15.31%
Robbery UP 18.63%
All of those could well have involved knives - of course, they don't want you to know whether they do or not, so the figures are kept as broad as possible.
Even so, worrying times ahead as serious crime continues to rise at an alarming pace.
Worse still, there's no sign that the government, judges or police are actually doing anything to try and lower the rates.
Grumpy old man, Swindon says...
2:27pm Wed 16 Jul 08
The principle is there though, I do that sort of thing with my kids all the time. For example, if they don't want to go out to the shops but we have to. I tell them - "OK we won't go but you won't get any dinner". Instantly they want to go to the shops (usually :-))
doug@homefarm, SN1 says...
2:43pm Wed 16 Jul 08
AngryBloke, Swindon says...
2:55pm Wed 16 Jul 08
As we have said before, if you carry a knife and are caught, there should be a mandatory 5 year prison sentance
PaulD, says...
2:57pm Wed 16 Jul 08
The morals you had as a child, and the morals of the knife-carrying kids of today are completely unaligned and cannot be compared.
You probably had lots of hopes and ambitions as a child. The murderous kids of today have no hopes or ambition shot of gaining power over other people.
I don't have the answers for this, but to win a battle, you really need to know who or what the enemy is.
Frontier(s), says...
3:33pm Wed 16 Jul 08
There are many thousands of kids for whom gangs, drugs and weapons ARE their way of life. You might not understand it, or might choose to ignore it, but the reality remains the same.
For many young kids (and I'm talking 8 upwards here), a life of crime and violence is all they aspire to and is all they know.
Knives are cool, guns are even cooler to some kids today.
This country has basically become what America was in the 80s. People are being shot and stabbed to death in broad daylight in our towns and cities. It's happening virtually daily.
The government themselves admitted last week that 38 stabbing victims are admitted to UK A&E departments every day.
This is a massive underestimate as victims do not yet legally have to inform the police about knife wounds, nor do doctors.
A report for the Policy Exchange think-tank, due to be published this week found 27 per cent of the public have either been the victim of a violent crime committed by children or young people; had a gun or knife used against them, been threatened with one, or know a friend or relative who has had a gun or knife used against them or who has been threatened with one in the past 12 months.
It also reveals that one person in five aged between 19 and 24 knows someone who has been threatened by a gun or a knife in the past year.
This is Labour's Britain 2008.
And what's their spectacularly misjudged answer to all of this?
They plan to take the criminals to see their victims in hospital.
Jesus wept. This government HAS to go... and go now. The country really cannot take any more of their hopeless inability to get anything right.
Frontier(s), says...
4:20pm Wed 16 Jul 08
A man threatens another (oh, sorry, he 'showed' the man the knife) with a 12" knife and the magistrate says:
because of the current situation surrounding knife crime magistrates needed to be more careful in the sentences they handed down.
What?!?
Are they admitting they're usually not careful when sentencing people who carry and threaten to use knives?
I would bet my year's salary that this knifeman wouldn't even have got a suspended sentence if knife crime wasn't in the news at the moment.
We have to move to a situation of accountable judges and magistrates. They have to be elected and they have to do their jobs properly.
This magistrate virtually apologises to the knifeman that he couldn't simply let him off because knife crime is currently a politically hot potato.
What the HELL is going on in our courts?!?
yeti, swindon says...
4:33pm Wed 16 Jul 08
hasn't sex education been stepped up in recent years? yet teenage slappers are getting knocked up left right and centre.
crime,unsocial behaviour,scum breeding,thefts etc,etc,etc, will still happen regardless so lock up the criminals.neuter dole dossers.
Frontier(s), says...
4:41pm Wed 16 Jul 08
That doesn't even mean a person caught carrying/using a knife will be prosecuted, it simply means they probably will (which, when it comes to Labour, means nothing at all).
Even if they are prosecuted, it's highly unlikely they'd be sent to prison.
These are the facts, from the Home Office themselves:
Officers arrested nearly 7,000 people last year for carrying a knife, but only nine received the maximum prison sentence.
Does anyone really think Labour are taking knife crime remotely seriously?
Robert Feal-Martinez, Swindon says...
8:04pm Wed 16 Jul 08
PJC, Old Town says...
9:01pm Wed 16 Jul 08
AngryBloke wrote:When I was a teenager, we were always told that you DID get a 5 year sentence for carrying a knife without good reason. Were they lying to me?
Every knife, including butter knives, are dangerous, but only in the wrong hands. Doug has a sheath knife, which in his possession would harm no-one, but you cannot say that for everyone. I have been threatened on 3 occassions by someone possessing a knife through previous employment. It is not a nice thing to happen at all, even if it was a cutlery knife. It leaves the defender shaken and very upset. Knives are as danderous as the person holding it.
As we have said before, if you carry a knife and are caught, there should be a mandatory 5 year prison sentance
PJC, Old Town says...
9:06pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Mumstheword, Walcot says...
9:35pm Wed 16 Jul 08
Who told you that PJC? Btw at least ten years for a cork :)
LA, says...
9:07am Thu 17 Jul 08
Frontier(s), says...
9:16am Thu 17 Jul 08
PJC wrote:
When I was a teenager, we were always told that you DID get a 5 year sentence for carrying a knife without good reason. Were they lying to me?
Yes, 'they' were lying to you.
It was only a year or two ago that the maximum sentence for using a knife was raised from two to four years.
Out of 7000 court cases since then, only 9 people who used knives have received the maximum four years.
Nobody gets five years for using a knife unless they actually kill somebody.
And even that only gets you about 9 years these days.
The fantastic deterrent effect of these lenient sentences can now be read about in our newspapers on a daily basis.
LA, says...
9:21am Thu 17 Jul 08
If the government fails to protect it's citizens then they will start to feel that they have to protect themselves, which is why so many people are starting to carry knives.
Frontier(s), says...
9:43am Thu 17 Jul 08
Of course, what the courts decide is entirely down to the government - so it's yet another weak government con for them to pretend they have no control over sentencing... it's THEY who set sentencing!
The big problem the country faces is that our 'Justice' Minister, Jack Straw, and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, both believe that nobody should ever be sent to jail.
With these two dangerous men in charge, we have no hope against the rising tide of crime.
Jack Straw even had the bare-faced cheek to claim he's now given home owners more legal rights to protect themselves, their families and property when, in reality, his 'new' law still has the same criminal protection caveat of people only being able to use 'reasonable force' to defend themselves.
The problem with that being that if you shout a rude name at an intruder with a knife they'll claim hurt feelings and the police/courts will be only too pleased to have you up on a charge or using unreasonable force.
Until Labour are shown the door and are out of government, the criminal will ALWAYS have more rights than the victim and law-abiding public.
Pav, Swindon says...
9:46am Thu 17 Jul 08
I see the excuses are already mounting up "first offence", "full of regret" etc. etc.
Frontier(s), says...
9:56am Thu 17 Jul 08
It comes to something when supposedly intelligent magistrates effectively issue sentences based on media reaction.
You're right though, all the usual excuses have been put out there already.
Despite the current climate, they're doing all they can to ensure this knifeman (who could just as easily be up on a murder charge had his victim had a panic and engaged him) will walk free.
The maximum sentence for possession of a knife is 4 years in this country.
Let's keep an eye on this story and see how long this guy gets.
I'm thinking one year suspended sentence, ie, no punishment whatsoever.
That'll send a strong message to all those thinking of carrying knives and threatening others with them.
The message being: go right ahead, that's perfectly fine.
Your sayYourSwindon
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Mumstheword, Walcot says...
1:35pm Wed 16 Jul 08