Fight against young people's involvement in violent crime is a top priority following latest schoolboy killing, says Metropolitan Police Authority

11/07
15 February 2007

The Metropolitan Police Authority said today tackling youth involvement in gang-related crime is a top priority in order to maintain the reduction in firearms offences, tackle knife crime and to reassure Londoners that the latest spate of murders in south London are being urgently addressed.

Speaking following the latest incident in which a 15-year-old schoolboy was shot and killed in his home in Lambeth, MPA deputy chair Cindy Butts said although gun crime in London is down by almost 16% over the same period last year, every gun-enabled crime is to be condemned and deplored.

“This sudden rash of killings is reprehensible and must be stopped,” she said. “We will continue to work determinedly with the Met police and our partners to do everything we can to reduce further violent crime and victims. Any illegal use of guns or knives is taken extremely seriously and will not be tolerated.

“A key issue for all of us involved in this fight is the need to divert young people away from the gun and knife culture, preferably long before they find themselves caught up in this invidious sub-culture where it is mistakenly considered cool to carry a gun or knife. There is nothing cool about carrying offensive weapons as fashion accessories or as tools of intimidation, suppression and control. This sort of behaviour can and does lead to a tragedy, both for the victim and the culprit. In both cases lives are destroyed.

“The MPA has always made combating gun crime a very high priority. In 2004 our gun crime scrutiny highlighted areas where the Met could improve. Since then, significant progress has been made in most areas, and the work also precipitated changes to the law, with the mandatory minimum five-year jail sentence being introduced for the possession of illegally held firearms.

“We support the approach taken by the Met, in particular with regard to the specialist teams they have in place, like Trident and the work of Operation Blunt, which have developed very good community relations and can point to a number of successes of prevention. Other structural changes will improve the amount of credible intelligence available and the way it is used.

“Firearms supply remains a concern. The Met is developing links with other agencies and there has been some success in reducing the availability of imitation firearms. But this remains a challenge, especially with the Internet making everything much more easily available than before, both in terms of products and the information required to convert imitations into working guns.

“Partnership working is very important and it is improving, with the establishment of the pan London gangs guns and weapons reduction board, leading to more joined up strategic decision making and some excellent partnership working, particularly between Trident and local authorities on the ground.

“Some of the key issues we now need to address include the unwelcome development of offenders becoming younger (a quarter are aged under 18), and their lives being more chaotic and their behaviour more unpredictable than ever before. And to compound the problems they are often unknown to police, making it much harder for police to intervene and prevent incidents.

“There is also an over-representation of gun crime in black communities, which is why we have the specialist teams such as Trident to address this issue with black communities. But despite all of this, we should point out that although horrific, there are still a relatively small number of incidents each year, involving a relatively small number of people. But it does cause much alarm and distress among communities and we must reassure them that everything that can be done is being done to address the problem.”

Notes to editors

The MPA and the MPS have statutory responsibilities under the Children Act 2004 to ensure the safety, protection and well-being of children and young people in partnership with all agencies working with children and young people. Since the tragic death of Victoria Climbie the MPA and MPS have made this a top priority. Ensuring the well-being of children in every aspect of their lives is central to the implementation of Every Child Matters and must be pivotal to any long term strategy to make our children safe from all crime including those of such a serious nature in the recent spate across south London.

Gun enabled crime:

For year to date (April to December), gun enabled crime in MPS is down 15.9%.
The sanction detection rate is 19.2%.
Lambeth = down 15.4% (33 fewer offences).
Southwark = down 6.2% (14 fewer offences).
Both these boroughs show reductions year on year.

Gun crime:

The proportion of persons accused under 18 is 26% (April to December 2006 data). This amounts to small numbers (380 accused compared to 3337 victims) and relates to 98 accused aged 10-17 out of 380 total persons accused for gun-enabled crime.

Victims of gun crime April – December 2006:

Victims aged between 2-17 numbers of victims down 23.8% 2006 compared to 2005.
The victim group most at risk (18-29) is down 14.7% over the 2005/06 figures.
For all groups, victims of gun crime are down 15.1%.

Knife enabled crime:

Knife enabled crime in the MPS is down 2.6% when comparing April-Dec 2006 with 2005 (latest available data).
Sanction detection rate is up for the third consecutive year to 22.5% (MPS)
There has been a 2.9% increase in victims aged 2-17 this year compared to 2005/06. But victims aged 18-29 are down 7.7%.

‘Food For Thought' event, which was held on 28 March 2006

This event was attended by more than 50 people and made several major recommendations including:

1. Greater community engagement by statutory agencies with parents, relatives and victims of gun crime
2. Gun crime to be a PI for the MPS
3. Greater communication between agencies such as the MPA, MPS, IPCC and Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) around rights of families affected by gun crime.

Further media information

For further information, please contact the MPA press office

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