The conviction last week of two 12-year-old boys for the murder of a 19-year-old, Shawn Seesahai, with whom they had an altercation in Wolverhampton, has pushed the subject of knife crime up the agenda in the middle of the general election campaign. The pair are the youngest people convicted of murder in the UK for more than 30 years, and a senior investigating officer described his shock at learning their ages.
Typically, rightwing parties place more emphasis on law and order. But tackling crime was not one of Rishi Sunak’s five pledges. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party, by contrast, has made “Take back our streets” one of the five “missions” in its manifesto.
The issue does not top voters’ concerns nationally. The cost of living, the health service and the economy are all of greater concern, according to pollsters. But in some areas, particularly poorer ones in traditionally Labour areas where economic pressures are most intense, violence has risen, along with a perception that the police have lost control. The BBC’s Ed Thomas wrote in the Guardian at the weekend of his encounter with a teenage drug dealer in Middlesbrough, who showed him a large knife and bags of crack cocaine. Shoplifting and violent abuse of retail staff have also increased massively – with the Co-op recording 44% more offences at its stores in 2023 than the year before. Its director of public affairs, Paul Gerrard, described a state of “lawlessness on the UK high street that has never been seen before”. In October, police chiefs responded with a new retail crime action plan.
Labour is promising to tackle the problem of knife crime from both sides. Its commitment to mandatory youth offending plans for all young people caught with bladed weapons seems so obvious that it ought to have been introduced years ago. The pledges to restore local youth services and neighbourhood policing are also welcome. The Tory attack on youth centres, via decimated council budgets, showed a disgraceful lack of care towards teenagers.
Similarly, Labour’s goal of reducing violence against women and girls by half within a decade is a worthy one. But it will not be achieved without sustained investment. As with many of the party’s policies, its leading lights ask where the money will come from. A Labour government will need to follow through, or risk fuelling anger and cynicism.
If this ambiguity points to a potential gap between rhetoric and policy in future, the truth is that a gulf already divides criminal justice theory from reality. The crown court backlog in England and Wales stands at 67,500 cases. Delays, adjournments and no-shows by defendants, lawyers and witnesses lead to repeated delays. Parts of the prisons system are not working at all, and are more likely, in the view of the prisons inspectorate, to make inmates worse rather than better. While politicians pledge to create new offences, and review sentences that are seen as out of step with the public mood, the more immediate issue is who will enact any changes, either in policing or justice, given current workforce challenges.
There is no question that violence ruins lives. Poverty and lack of opportunity have worsened the situation in some areas. While an increased focus on prevention is essential, the criminal justice system is meant to alleviate the harms caused. The danger, based on current trends, is that it is increasingly incapable of doing so.
