It’s a real shame that the release of the latest figures on knife crime have been dogged by controversy over the way in which they were released rather than the story that they tell. As Alix Mortimer reported on this blog on 13th December the UK Statistics Authority has accused the government of releasing “premature, irregular and selective” figures which appeared to prove that knife crime in the UK was falling.
The National Statistics Code of Practice is there for a reason and of course due processes should be in place to make sure that the figures are not being manipulated for political gain by any political party. Moving on however from Jaqui Smith’s apology, admitting that the government was, “too quick off the mark” in releasing the figures, to simply dismiss the figures as an example of government spin and nothing more completely misses the issue important issue of youth violence and how it can effectively be tackled in the UK.
In the initial briefing’s that the government gave around the disputed statistics, much of the success in reducing knife crime was attributed to police crackdowns as they stepped up their stop and search powers to tackle knife crime. Whether the statistics are valid are not what these comments do reveal is a fundamental short term approach to tackling youth violence and knife crime.
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