Gordon Brown's tough talk won't stop knives

JamieSW — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:37:37 +0000

It seems that in the last week the entire political establishment has jumped on the issue of knife crime.

Gordon Brown used his monthly press conference on Monday of this week to announce his new get-tough approach. There are to be tough “community payback” schemes, tough plans to deal with “problem families”, and tough curfews for the under-16s.

But beneath all this robust language it is clear that none of our politicians have a clue as to how to reduce the number of young people carrying knifes, only the vague hope that by talking tough they can prevent their political rivals from outflanking them.

Brown’s community payback scheme is one such example.

Here those convicted of carrying, but not using, a knife will be forced to undertake up to 300 hours of work over 50 days.

“Communities… should have a role in deciding what they should do,” says Brown. “Cleaning up parks or scrubbing graffiti, and what time they should do it, such as cleaning the streets on Friday and Saturday night.”

The overwhelming majority of young people who carry knifes do so out of an acute sense of fear that unless they are armed, they may become the next victim of a stabbing. Some are scared for their lives every time they leave their house.

Does Brown really believe that people in such a situation will be deterred by this scheme?

Is it the case that the very small number of people who have become so alienated from the society that they see little value in human life – neither theirs, nor anyone else’s – will now think twice before reaching for a blade?

Surely even New Labour knows this is rubbish.

Programmes

Brown is attempting to lay the blame for knife crime at the feet of the families of the 110,000 children he claims have been found guilty of anti-social behaviour.

“I think all of us recognise that the first responsibility where a child is in trouble or in danger of getting into trouble rests with the parent,” he argues.

Now up to 20,000 of those families could face “parenting action” programmes, and even removal to residential accommodation for retraining.

Those that refuse the scheme could find themselves evicted from social housing and their children taken into care.

How making families homeless, turfing their belongings out in the street, and then sending their kids to a care home will make the situation better is anyone’s guess.

Nevertheless the idea does have a specific ideological purpose. It says social problems in our communities are the result of personal and family failure, rather than being connected to any wider concerns.

If knife crime is the product of families that are out of control, then there need be no discussion of other issues, like the levels of exclusion from schools, unemployment rates, crap jobs and lack of apprenticeships. There need not be any understanding about the way many working class young people feel completely undervalued and under siege.

Above all it means that the state can absolve itself from any responsibility for providing real remedies to the situation.

By accepting such a right wing agenda on crime, Brown has given credibility to David Cameron’s talk of a “broken society”.

Failed

He has allowed the Tories to suggest that some problems may not stem only from failed individuals but from a society whose values have failed – an idea that can masquerade as both left and right wing.

But we cannot afford to allow the right to dominate the debate over crime.

Many people rightly feel that anti-social behaviour and violence grow when the idea of community is undermined. This notion of community rests on the idea that we are not just atomised individuals, but people capable of collective action.

Struggles to improve our estates, build community centres and challenge the way our education system is developing as a test factory have the potential to unite people in ways that no mainstream politician seems capable of.

But the success of such campaigns is dependent upon rejecting the idea that young people are the problem and that a crackdown is the answer.

Society is Indeed Broken

Ellie Keen — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:42:29 +0000

...and we all know who broke it

When submerged under a veritable deluge of ideologically-driven ‘reforms’, it takes something especially imbecilic to provoke a double-take. Louise Casey, the mouthy former head of the Government’s ‘Respect task force’, is set to spearhead the latest New Labour gimmick on law ’n order. Among the 20 proposals that fade from the merely banal to the truly asinine here are three that provoke a modicum of analysis.

Anonymous evidence

Elderly and disabled crime victims – as well as people at risk of reprisals— should be allowed to give evidence in court from behind screens. Ministers are sympathetic to the idea, which already happens routinely in cases involving sex offences and gangs.

Fine, in one way, except that ‘anonymous evidence’ does not allow the defence to cross-examine witnessess or indeed raise questions as to any previous relationship the accused might have had with the accuser that might have lead them to offer evidence (not to mention the possibility of witnesses being coerced as a result of a police vendetta) against the accused in the first place.

Internet crime maps

Online maps with crimes plotted on them to be published every month so people can see how dangerous their area is and how well the police are doing. Gordon Brown has backed the move in principle, but areas could be stigmatised if the maps are street-by-street.

The truth is many working class areas are already operationally stigmatised. ‘Control and contain’, whereby crime in one area is ignored by the police the better to protect a ‘nicer’ middle class area nearby, is commonplace. Online maps would merely give what is custom and practice an air of routine formality.

Youth clubs

Friday-night youth clubs to be set up in 50 of the most deprived areas.

Youth clubs for the the 50 most deprived areas? There are a number of delirious aspects involved in the proposition. Ever notice how New Labour ministers and the media are happy to talk blithely about ‘deprived communities’ without any mention to how they came to be ‘deprived’ in the first place? In the absence of any such analysis it takes a remarkable level of political remove to imagine that thirty years of the deliberate stripping out of the grassroots infrastructure in working class neighbourhoods can be remedied by organising ‘a youth club on Friday nights’. What about the other nights? Or ‘deprived area’ number 51? Or indeed 151?

The media who should be asking the serious questions don’t do so. The Independent’s response, for example, was almost unbelievable. ‘Funding for youth services is already being boosted with poorer communities targeted. But should high-crime areas be rewarded?’ it asks. It is true that poorer communties are indeed being targeted and not in the benign way The Independent likes to pretend. But more than that, as even government statistics demonstrate, it is self-evidently working class people in the high crime areas that are most likely to be the victims of crime. Why punish the community further? But as far as The Independent is concerned—Why not?

Former Tory leader Ian Duncan-Smith blathers on about ‘a broken society’ in a similar way. But rival parties never ever challenge him on who broke it. That is because the beginnings of a solution are staring them all in the face. But why bother going to the root of the problem (the callous and systematic destruction of a youth club infrastructure and the selling-off of school playing fields, and so on) when under existing neo-liberal orthodoxy the unthinking dribblings in the Casey formula work just as well?

law and order | ukwatch.net

Gordon Brown's tough talk won't stop knives

Society is Indeed Broken

...and we all know who broke it