As violent crime engulfs London, the comment desk is offered solutions

As the numbers of young people who have either died or been affected by knife and gun crime continue to rise, so too, predictably, have calls for the police to “crack down” on those same young people.

But alongside a push for more draconian stop and search practices is the emerging understanding that simply resorting to more force, primarily against young black men, isn’t exactly the silver bullet the youth violence epidemic needs.

We know how ineffective stop and search tends to be in terms of reducing knife crime. And we know full well, thanks to the tireless efforts of campaigners, charities and bodies like the Independent Police Complaints Commission, that when it comes to police contact with ethnic minorities, particularly black people, the results can be fatal.

We also know that when they are fatal, prosecutions of police officers “in connection with a death in custody in the last 15 years” have all resulted in acquittals.

No wonder then that black people in particular continue to have lower confidence in the police than most other groups.

As a commissioning editor on The Independent’s Voices desk, I’ve seen every view on violent crime in London through pitches to my inbox from journalists, ex-police and affected members of the public. I’ve seen the trend pivot more towards a sympathetic view on those caught up in knife crime. And I welcome being educated during those conversations, because all too often those of us who haven’t got a clue on this particular issue end up screaming the loudest.

To my mind, few have managed to capture the heart of the debate quite as well as Temi Mwale.

Writing for the Voices desk, Mwale, who herself lost a loved one to gun crime as a teenager, pointed out just how short sighted and ineffective the government’s solution to the issue really is.

The government’s Serious Violence Strategy admits that “changes in the level of stop and search have only minimal effects – at best – on trends in violent crime”, she wrote. But Sadiq Khan’s “public health approach”, while seemingly helpful, not only fails to clearly set out how it will address, and reduce, youth violence, but directly contradicts Khan’s pre-existing knife crime strategy, which has increased weapons-focused stop and searches by nearly 20 per cent.

In contrast, Mwale called for more investment in “building communities”, better access to “holistic support services” and a push to equip “grassroots groups with the tools to deliver emergency mental-health first aid” in order to empower those who “experience trauma, anxiety, paranoia and depression after violence”. Are these solutions some of us may have heard in the past? Yes, but they rarely get a serious look in.

With that in mind, it’s clear that we should be making more of an effort to look to people like Mwale, who both have personal ties to these issues and a plan for how to implement systemic change. Conversations like these clearly aren’t always happening where they should be, but the comment section of a news publication is a good place to start.

Yours,

Kuba Shand-Baptiste

Voices commissioning editor