‘Warn young children about knife crime risk’
Baroness Newlove – whose husband was murdered by youths – says strategy on violence must start earlier
Young children should be warned about the dangers of gangs and knives, says the Government’s victims commissioner. Baroness Newlove, whose husband was killed by three youths, said some children as young as seven showed signs that they were at risk of becoming involved in violence. Prevention strategies must start long before children were “sucked into gangs”, she said. “We need to educate them to understand that to carry a knife or to stab anyone is a crime.”
CHILDREN should be taught from the age of seven about the dangers of carrying knives and joining gangs, says the Government’s victims’ commissioner. Baroness Newlove, whose husband was killed by three youths, said signs that children were at risk of becoming involved in violence in early life could be seen in those as young as seven.
“Any strategy must start long before children have been sucked into gangs and a hostile and violent culture. We need to educate them to understand that to carry a knife or to stab anyone is a crime,” she said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
“I speak from the unenviable position of having been widowed because of violent crime. But no child is born with a knife in its hand. We must do something in the intervening years before it becomes the essential accessory.”
Police investigating “county lines” gangs – so called as they run their drug trade out of cities into towns and rural areas using mobile phone lines – have picked up 10- and 11-year-olds being used as drug mules.
Baroness Newlove cited the work of organisations such as the Ben Kinsella Trust – named after the 16-year-old stabbed to death by three youths in London in June 2008 – to combat gangs recruiting children.
But she warned the £40 million earmarked by the Government in its serious violence strategy for such work was inadequate and amounted to “a drop in the ocean and less than a £100 per violent offence”.
She said the tech giants also needed to do more to take down gang music videos used to recruit the young to gangs and intimidate rivals.
“Tech firms must shoulder their share of blame for feeding a knife crime epidemic by posting drill videos that glamorise knife and gun crime with their toxic lyrics,” she said.
“Companies such as Youtube and Google need to act responsibly, by cracking down on gang violence and banning graphic videos for impressionable audiences.”
Middle-class drug users should also be classed as “perpetrators” for fuelling the drug trade, said Baroness Newlove.
“City workers who drink their Fairtrade coffee out of a reusable cup during the week think nothing of the supply chain of the stuff they snort up their nose at the weekend. They are as guilty as the moped riders,” she said.
“The franchising of drug supply across the country – ‘county lines’ – has brought violent crime into the heart of the countryside. It’s a symptom of the rotten supply chain of middle-class drug taking,” she added.
Parents needed to be more alert to the risks. “It’s also down to the parents. If their children are coming home with £50 or new trainers, they need to find out where it comes from,” she said.