Diary of a former Bow Street Runner

Considering the current media obsession with 'flavour of the month' knife crime, it's quite ironic that the Home Office's very own pisspoor piece of police propaganda is a magazine called 'The Sharp End'!

As predicted, the knife amnesty is just a futile publicity stunt, and anyone with even a quasi-functional brain will realise that any such amnesties always will be. As I wrote elsewhere, those most likely to use knives are not going to suffer a sudden attack of conscience and hand in the weapons, partly motivated by the fact that they will not be prosecuted if they do. Knives come in all shapes and sizes, are simple to get hold of and can be very easy to conceal, and are the perfect tool for any criminal.

Meanwhile, the media would appear to make out that there has suddenly been an epidemic in stabbings nationwide. I'm inclined to disagree. Knife crime is round about the normal levels, which are frequent anyway. There's two reasons why there's a perceived increase:

1. The knife amnesty, surrounding press and certain high-profile incidents have increased people's awareness of knife crime, as opposed to an increase in knife crime itself. Therefore, people read about nominally reported knife incidents more often than they would have done.

2. The press are giving more attention to knife incidents, quite possibly to show that the amnesty is a waste of time and that serious action needs to be taken. Good on them too, for once.

So what serious action should be taken? Banning sales of knives is a waste of time - people will just import them or get them elsewhere. The punishments for carrying knives should be increased. Possession of a bladed article, without a satisfactory defence (statutory or otherwise) should have a minimum term of five years. This will deter the opportunist criminal, or the criminal normally less inclined to carry a knife but will do so because of the limited punishment currently afforded by the system (I've seen people get small fines and conditional discharges for carrying knives before).

This, however, won't deter the criminal who carries and uses knives on a regular basis. In this instance I suggest that police firearms officers be granted firearms authority against offenders carrying knives. Ultimately, they are life-threatening weapons, are VERY difficult and dangerous to forcibly disarm at close range (so much so that we are not taught knife disarming techniques during training) and present serious threats to all involved. Therefore, if an ARV is able to be called out to a man with a knife, and have authority to use lethal force if need be, then that will also serve to send out a message that carrying a knife has very serious consequences. I'm not saying that it'll end the problem, but it'll at least provide short-term remedies on a job-by-job basis. I can't think of any long-term solutions, and I don't think there are any - we've been using knives and similar instruments for several thousand years. We're not going to end the culture in five.

Thoughts or comments welcome.
(c) Bow Street Runner. None of the material contained in this post, or this blog as a whole, may be reproduced without the express and written permission of Bow Street Runner. All rights reserved.