Knife crime won’t be solved by politicians using hyped-up language and cliches

In the first half of 2020, knife seizures increased by 13 per cent, amounting to 1,214 seizures in total. There have been some awful incidents of tragic knife crimes recently where people have lost their lives.

Knife crime is a horrific thing, which kills. But what’s not going to “solve” it, is a reheated proposal by Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan, seeking to double the maximum sentence for possession of a knife from five to 10 years.

O’Callaghan talks about “the epidemic of knife crime across the country” and uses hyped up language such as, “we need to eradicate this scourge and take back our streets for all people, day or night.”It’s easy to say you’re “tough on crime”. Everyone wants there to be no crime. But that’s not an actual position, it’s a posture.

Knife crime, or a “culture” of knife crime, as the story sometimes goes, is an easy media narrative to package. It is a pre-sold media franchise imported from the UK. These narratives tend to focus on superficial cliches, drum up fear and panic and more insidiously, stigmatise young men and boys by framing them as potential threats on the street.

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A top down approach – as if most people think about sentencing before committing a violent crime – will not work and will condemn people to prison for longer, losing opportunities for restorative justice and rehabilitation.

Policing has increased, street life has completely altered and traffic patterns and pedestrian activity have changed radically

In June 2019 in this newspaper, Conor Lally outlined the importance of a discerning interpretation of knife seizure figures, since medical records, “perhaps a better indicator of what’s really happening on the streets, reveal a prolonged decline in serious stabbing injuries being treated in Irish hospitals”.

While the Garda recorded a 60 per cent increase in knife seizures between 2016 and 2018, this coincided with an increase in Garda personnel of 4,000, with more gardaí on the beat.

The impact of the pandemic on crime is multifaceted and idiosyncratic. For example, burglaries fell by more than 20 per cent, an obvious statistical shift when everyone is at home for prolonged periods. Other theft is down 18 per cent, which has to at least in part be related to the number of businesses closed.

How do you rob the till when the shop or pub isn’t open? Down also, were (reported) sexual assaults, by 12 per cent, which probably speaks at least somewhat to the fact that people aren’t socialising at night.

Simultaneously, detected drug offences are up almost 9 per cent, and weapons and explosives offences are up about 12 per cent. But this, like the other crime statistics, has to be viewed in the unique context of the pandemic.

We have to understand and engage with the context and circumstances that lead to someone acting violently on the street

Drugs and weapons seizures, along with other seizures such as cash proceeds of drugs, have all increased during lockdowns and the pandemic generally. Does that mean that the pandemic and lockdown has caused a massive increase in all of these things?

No, it’s not a QED situation. Policing has increased, street life has completely altered and traffic patterns and pedestrian activity have changed radically. The more checkpoints there are, the more Garda patrols, and the more people “stick out” given less traffic and drastically reduced pedestrian activity, the more things are going to be picked up and spotted by gardaí, be that randomly, or through them using the opportunity to observe and track to their advantage.

Abusive partners

Violence in the home has increased terrifyingly during the pandemic. Thinking of people in lockdown with abusive partners is awful - so can you imagine living that reality? Women and children suffer most in these situations, with violent men being the majority of perpetrators. The number of people being charged with crimes related to violence in the home rose by almost 25 per cent since the beginning of the pandemic.

Simultaneously, youth services, youth clubs, sports training, matches, school, and other activities that occupy the daily lives of young people have stopped. This obviously has an impact, and it’s beginning to have an accumulative one. There is nothing for young people to do, and every young person is being affected by the pandemic.

We know by the surge in domestic violence figures that many homes across Ireland are simply not safe. For children who are in secure households, and in wealthy, better resourced areas, the context is still difficult. But for young people who grow up in much more challenging circumstances, external resources are not just a past-time or a bit of amusement, they can be a refuge and a hugely needed diversion from chaos and stress.

Neale Richmond of Fine Gael is asking people to look to Scotland for solutions, their violence reduction unit and a perspective that treats knife crime as a public health issue, with a community-led approach that focuses on education and more effective interventions with young people who may be vulnerable to being perpetrators of or victims of stabbings.

Since the unit was established, homicides in Glasgow have dropped by 65 per cent. O’Callaghan has also spoken about the importance of education regarding knife crime. This is a smart approach offering interventions that are more preventative than increasing sentencing. But they are still interventions, and do not address the underlying causes of street-level crimes: poverty and inequality.

If Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael want to get serious about knife crime, or their perceptions of it, they need to tackle poverty and inequality. That’s the radical approach. We have to understand and engage with the context and circumstances that lead to someone acting violently on the street or preparing themselves to do so. If you leave the house without a knife: why? Probably because you feel safe.