Courts must take lead on knife crime
A shocking report by MPs reveals children as young as seven are being used as 'mules' to carry knives for older youths to help them dodge arrest.
The study, prepared by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, says there were 270 stabbing deaths last year, partly fuelled by an "arms race" in knives among youngsters.
The number of knife deaths has risen 27 per cent in the last two years and is now at its highest since records began in 1977.
Those figures are deeply troubling. As is the MPs' warning that many youths now regard it as "normal" to be armed with a blade.
Yet of the 6,704 people caught with a knife in the final three months of last year only 1,386 were locked up immediately.
That last statistic sends out the wrong message to youngsters in regard to the seriousness of knife offences.
What is more, it's wholly out of kilter with the public's demand for firm action to tackle this epidemic.
Yet there is hope.
In Leeds, 20,000 youngsters have passed through a weapons awareness programme spearheaded by the Royal Armouries.
Believed to be the largest-scale crime prevention scheme in the country, it educates teenagers in every city high school about the dangers of carrying a blade.
Its work has won praise from the select committee, which says it has changed the way young people think about knives and has led to an increase in teenagers reporting people they know to be carrying them.
Now they want the rest of the country to follow our example and roll out similar schemes across the UK; a case of Leeds leading the way.
Education is important if we are to convince young people that carrying a blade is not, and never should be, normal behaviour.
However, that alone cannot win the war on knives. We also need courts to start taking a tougher stance.
Sometimes only custodial sentences can give those who would arm themselves with a deadly weapon the short, sharp shock they need to see the error of their ways.
Getting Lucky
IT would be fair to say that Leeds United have ruffled a few feathers in their time.
But now they've gone one step further by enlisting the help of a team of birds of prey to rid their ground of a plague of pigeons and jackdaws.
The bird invaders moved in when nearby warehouses where they had taken up residence were demolished, leading them to try to move into the stands.
However, Lucky the Harris hawk and Leo the Lanner falcon have played a blinder and the pigeons are no longer a fixture at the stadium.
We can only hope Leeds get off to a similar flying start when they launch their League One promotion bid in a few months' time.
And that they make Elland Road just as unwelcome a hunting ground for their opponents as Lucky and Leo have.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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