JEREMY Corbyn will today host a round-table talk on gun and knife crime, hoping to learn from the successful “integrated approach” adopted by the authorities in Glasgow.
Among those attending the Westminster meeting will be John Cronachan from the Violence Reduction Unit [VRU] in Glasgow, which is responsible for designing the successful crime reduction initiative in the city; once dubbed the murder capital of Britain.
The VRU was set up in 2005. There were 10,110 recorded incidents of handling an offensive weapon in Scotland in 2006/07, a figure which fell by almost 70 per cent to 3,111 in 2015/16. In the ten years to 2016/17, the number of homicide cases in Scotland fell by 47 per cent.
“Labour's approach to dealing with the sharp rise in violent crime will be shaped by those with first hand experiences of working on the front line,” explained the Labour leader.
"Ending damaging Tory cuts to police numbers and putting more officers on our streets is essential but only one part of the solution.
"We must also learn from other initiatives that work. Glasgow has had real success in reducing knife crime by implementing an integrated approach, where the police have worked with education, health and other public services. I'm looking forward to learning more about it," he added.
Mr Corbyn used Labour's local election campaign launch to attack Theresa May’s Government on policing cuts south of the border.
He seized on leaked Home Office documents linking rising crime with shrinking police numbers and dismissed the claim by Home Secretary Amber Rudd that the two issues were unrelated as "absolute nonsense".
As Labour seeks to make big gains across London in the May 3 poll, the Labour leader teamed up with London Mayor Sadiq Khan at an event in central London as the UK capital struggles to quell surging levels of knife violence; there have been 50 murders since the start of the year.
"You simply cannot maintain community cohesion when you slash funding to the police service and cut the number of officers on our streets by 21,000,” declared Mr Corbyn.
"You cannot protect local communities when you cut funding to local councils to such an extent they are unable to provide the essential youth service support that stops many young people from being drawn into violent crime. The Tory record on policing and crime is one of reckless failure.”
Ms Rudd came under fire after the UK Government published a major 114-page report on keeping Britain safe from violent crime but failed to include a single reference to officer numbers.
Hours before the strategy was launched, leaked internal Home Office research was published, which suggested falls in police numbers had "likely contributed" to a rise in serious violent crime.
Ms Rudd admitted she had not seen the leaked papers, which suggested offenders could have been "encouraged" after resources came under pressure and charge rates fell.
Arguing it was a "complex area" which was "not all about police numbers", the Secretary of State insisted: "You cannot arrest your way out of this."
She pointed out police forces with the largest falls in numbers had not seen the sharpest rises in crime.
As of September there were 121,929 officers across the 43 territorial forces in England and Wales; a fall of nearly 20,000 compared to a decade earlier.
Underpinned by £40 million of Home Office funding and a new Offensive Weapons Bill, the new strategy for south of the border:
*calls on social media companies to do more to rid the web of violent gang content;
*sets out restrictions on online sales of knives following concerns that age verification checks can be sidestepped;
*makes it a criminal offence to possess corrosive substances in a public place;
*reveals plans to consult on extending stop and search powers so police can use the tactics to seize acid from suspects carrying it without good reason and
*makes it illegal to possess certain weapons, including zombie knives and knuckle-dusters, in private.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel