In the face of the tragic and shocking rise in violence in London, it is good that there is a success story in Glasgow to draw on, where they have shown that reduction is possible (Treat violence as a public health crisis, say experts, 6 April).
One of the most compelling arguments for Glasgow’s long-term, joined-up public healthcare approach came from the police, who argued, on economic grounds, that early prevention pays.
To have senior police officers advocating for primary prevention from maternity services onwards shows the kind of cross-agency thinking that has helped Glasgow succeed. Building strong, protective family relationships, through highly accessible support for parenting and families, can dramatically alter children’s life trajectories, and having all agencies working to a common agenda to promote healthy development continues to build resilience for individuals and communities. Youth services and the police of course have their role in this developmental journey. Support for parenting, education, decent family housing, good mental health care, play and recreational opportunities for all may seem like softer options, but they are hard necessities in this bigger picture.
Professor Emerita Rachel Calam
Manchester
• Simon Jenkins (Don’t blame the police for London’s murder surge, 6 April) has some thoughtful comments about New York gun crime, but his claim that there is no relation between gun crime and local gun controls is not one of them.
Adam Hochschild, in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, points out: “In Massachusetts, which has some of America’s most restrictive firearms laws, three people in 100,000 are killed by guns annually, while in Alaska, which has some of the weakest, the rate is more than seven times as high. Maybe Alaskans need extra guns to fend of bears, but that’s certainly not so in Louisiana, another weak-law state, where the rate is more than six times as high as in Massachusetts.”
Differences between nations are even more shocking: Hochschild says that, compared with the citizens of 22 other high-income countries, Americans are 10 times more likely to be killed by guns.
Bev Littlewood
Richmond, London
• Though cuts in police are critical, the rise in murders is also due to other factors. Knife and gun crime has risen steadily since 2014 – in other words, since austerity started to bite, but the government has ignored this. Half of the recent murder victims have been aged 26 or under (Stabbing takes murder toll in London to 46 so far this year, 2 April). As the former CEO of a national youth charity, I see a clear link with the £22m cuts from London’s youth services, with more than 30 youth centres closed, according to a London assembly report. The government must take positive action, spending more on youth and children’s services, crime prevention and community policing. A coordinated approach worked in Glasgow, and even New York seems to be reducing its murder rate.
Don Macdonald
Chair, LFJ Youth Integration
• If you go to school in England, the chances are you will learn nothing about Africa or the Caribbean. Or about the Africans, Caribbeans and the Indians who fought for Britain in first and second world wars. Or the 2,000-year history of Africans in Britain. Or about what European cultures learned from, adapted from, the cultures in Egypt, Arabia, India, China. So if you’re a “black” person, you just don’t exist. But if you join a gang, you belong, you are somebody!
Marika Sherwood
Oare, Kent
• The gang warfare in London brings to mind Chicago in the 1920s. It was alcohol that was prohibited then; it is drugs now. Perhaps it is time to think the unthinkable and repeal prohibition. This would bring so many other benefits, as drugs could be controlled, regulated and taxed. Would it be less unthinkable, I wonder, were the victims middle class and white?
Nick Haysom
Winchester
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