Two knife crimes every day in Lewisham
8:10am Tuesday 7th February 2012 in Where I Live By Mark Chandler and Nina Massey
TWO brutal stabbings of teenagers in a week are just a taste of a bloody trend gripping the borough, new figures show.
In the most chilling incident last week, a witness claimed armed schoolchildren, still in uniform, attacked a 16-year-old with knives, a baseball bat and metal pole while up to 30 others goaded on the violence.
But perhaps most shocking are Lewisham police figures showing an average of two knife crimes a day in the borough since last April - a whopping 578 in 10 months.
Downham ward councillor Cllr Duwayne Brooks said: “First and foremost the borough has to accept it has a problem. At the moment it doesn’t.
“It won’t admit it has a problem with gangs and it won’t admit they have got a problem with schools.”
Cllr Brooks, part of Lewisham’s Community Police Consultative Group and close friend of murdered teen Stephen Lawrence, added: “Schools aren’t taking on board what’s happening.
“To tackle the problem children need to be stopped and searched in school.
“We need to intervene before it’s too late.”
On February 1, just hours after the Prince of Wales visited Hither Green’s Café of Good Hope to talk about youth crime, a 16-year-old boy was left with a head injury and two stab wounds to his leg.
Two 16-year-old boys arrested on suspicion of GBH were bailed pending further enquires.
In a separate incident, a 17-year-old was chased into Princethorpe Road, Sydenham, by around five youths who hit, kicked and stabbed him.
The vicious January 30 attack at 4.10pm shocked neighbours, who may soon lose their police station under cost-cutting plans.
The boy is recovering at home but no arrests have been made.
A spokeswoman said allegations can be reported as knife crimes even if the weapon is not seen - a victim only has to believe a knife is involved.
She added: “It’s easy to form the perception that all young people are carrying knives. Naturally this isn’t the case.
“It is just a minority who unfortunately take it upon themselves to arm themselves with any sharp implement but by doing so they pose a risk not only to the public but also to themselves.”
A spokeswoman for Lewisham Council said: "We work closely with the police, schools, families and other partners to support young people to make good choices. The vast majority of young people in Lewisham respond very well to this.
"As part of our strategy to reduce anti-social behaviour we offer restorative justice interventions and preventative work with children at risk of becoming offenders.
"Lewisham schools also do a great deal of work with their young people, not only about being good citizens but also about how to stay safe.”
Anyone with information on either incident should call Lewisham CID on 0208 2848 4372 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
Comments(11)
the wall
says...
10:49am Tue 7 Feb 12
gypojoe9
says...
11:15am Tue 7 Feb 12
the wall
says...
12:56pm Tue 7 Feb 12
He has gone very quite, made a mug of himself, me thinks.
hard hit tax payer
says...
3:35pm Tue 7 Feb 12
JoeG-10-Pog Mo Thoin
says...
6:24pm Tue 7 Feb 12
I hope I can say that, I've been banned more times than anyone that I know of now. I ought to be in the Guinness book of records. Talking of Guinness it's that time.
Max Calò
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7:51pm Tue 7 Feb 12
What's my opinion on this and the apparent contradiction between asking for searches at schools and also supporting texting people when section 60 searches to alert them that such an order has been issued?
Well, I see that it can look like a contradiction but also see that it's not that big.
Section 60 orders give extra powers to the police to the point where anybody can be searched irrespective of whether they can be reasonably suspected of anything, and that's an exceptional circumstance.
The probem with that can be that it can be abused by issuing it too often or can be counterproductive by giving the impression that some specific individuals or groups are unjustly targeted, which may be or not the case, but it's the damage caused by the perception the problem, which in turn can entrench antisocial and adversarial position from such people and result in a worsening of the antisocial problem in the target area rather than help solving it.
In the light of this consideration it's legitimate to support initiative like the alerts that section 60 orders have been issued so that people know that they're not being targeted but that that is the law there at that moment.
Now, the call for searches at schools is a different thing.
Do I support searching children at school? Well, if the teachers think that there is such a risk that those measures are necessary then yes, but it's up to them, but again as for section 60 orders I would like that to be an exception and not the rule.
Wouldn't the same considerations made for section 60 orders qualify just as much for searches at schools?
Some would, but surely if all children are searched equally nobody could say that he (or she) has been targeted.
I think though that one has to be very careful in supporting this.
If these exceptional searches are framed in the context that kids carrying knives are responsible for everyone being searched then those pupils that don't carry a knife could feel resentful against those kids that do and emarginate them.
But I'm not sure this would be the outcome, maybe they would instead feel complicit, and the opposite result would have been achieved.
It's a tough call, and the devil's in the details, if one wants to do it it needs to be communicated and managed properly or you'd end up with a counterproductive result.
Just as with the abuse of Section 60 orders.
So, do I like the idea? NO! I'm way to liberal to like it.
Would I oppose it? No, it's up to the teachers to make a judgement.
Do I believe that there's such a problem with schools and violent and antisocial behaviour and weapons that we need searches?
Well, 2 reports of knife crime a day is quite a lot, I hear that the Council say that many are just people reporting their perception that a knife was involved when it wasn't necessary there but they don't say how many, so taht sounds suspicious to me, on the other hand for all we know half of those reports could about the same few people, there are those one-man-crimewave kids.
Only by knowing the data in detail one could know if the call is justified or not, and I don't know those data.
I would conclude this with the consideration that section 60 orders have been abused because some police authority just found it an easy way to do something in situations that looked out of control.They didn't know who they needed to search so they gave themselves the power to search anybody. The result is that after years of doing this they still don't know who to search and the same levels of crime persist.
If a similar type of indiscriminate search would be introduced at schools then it would be a sign that teachers don't know what their pupils are up to and who needs special attention and who doesn't, and in that case maybe you have to do something drastic like closing the school altogether and start afresh under new management.
jaded1
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9:22pm Tue 7 Feb 12
Firstly do the teachers want to do the searching? Probably not as it will be very confrontational.
Secondly what happens when a teacher finds a knife on a pupil?Will he call the police?Will he confiscate it?Will he have to become a witness at court if the pupil is arrested?
Thirdly are there enough police in Lewisham to help the teachers search every pupil?
Fourthly if you search every pupil how long will it take to get them through the gates in the morning?.
Come on Dwayne less soundbites and more thinking.
JoeG-10-Pog Mo Thoin
says...
10:49pm Tue 7 Feb 12
You make some very valid points and it's more than food for a lot of thought. It's a very complex issue and I'm sure best left to teachers and the local police to try to come up with some ideas to solve, I sure don't envy them though. For most people like me children carrying knives etc and all these stabbings we read about is very very alien to our way of life.
JoeG-10-Pog Mo Thoin
says...
11:23am Thu 9 Feb 12
Max Calò
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6:43pm Thu 9 Feb 12
Its Me Again!!! says...
10:04am Tue 7 Feb 12
he does not support Police "Stop & Search" and is quick out of the blocks to accuse the police of "Racism" at every whim; now he just wants these youth searched at the school gate by teachers who should be just teaching!
Or are we seeing typical Liberal Democrat policies here? bury your head in the sand at a real problem; what a wasted vote this political party is;
just like we saw the newspaper headlines at the weekend!