Working to curb violent crime
I READ with interest the letter ‘Act To Stop Rise In Violent Crime’ [08/02/19].
My charity, Outside Chance, based in central Feltham, offers FREE anti crime, anti gang workshops in 7 West London boroughs, including Hounslow, to around 8,000 students in Year 6 primary and all year groups in secondary schools.
Our workshops are partially funded by Hounslow Council so FREE to local schools.
Our Average Student Feedback Score for the 2017-2018 school year was 98% in both primaries and secondaries.
With the increasing move to self governing ‘academy’ status and with very few exceptions, secondary schools have become like hotels and head teachers have become unwilling accountants, juggling with budgets, obsessed with Ofsted ratings and maintaining occupancy rates, both of which directly affect their attraction to local parents.
As a result, vital messages about the latest easy money ‘County Lines’ drugs scourge and ‘Joint Enterprise,’ effectively collective responsibility for crimes committed, are being wilfully withheld from our young people, often until it’s too late and they find themselves in a police station, a court and, in some cases, in Her Majesty’s Young Offenders Institution, Feltham, widely recognised as England’s most violent prison.
Increased prison sentences are NOT the answer.
The US maintains the death penalty in 30 of her states although she enacts it in only a handful.
Yet the US is the world’s largest jailer, holding 1 in 5 of the world’s prison population. Early education is the key to our knife and gang crime issues. Ian Ross FRSA CEO and Presenter Outside Chance