London Mayor’s bid to stop cuts and violence
SINCE he took over as Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has come in for criticism over the growth of violent crime in the capital.
But, as he says himself, there are a number of reasons behind its growth.
Police numbers in London have dipped below 30,000 for the first time since 2003. Falling morale, and terrible pay and conditions are forcing officers to quit. And the Government still insists on cutting.
The Met has been forced to cut £1bn from its budget since the 2010. And that, of course, has an effect. Mr Khan has tried to pump money in from City Hall to cover the shortfall. But the £140m he’s invested is barely a sticking plaster.
Disease
This week though, Mr Khan announced a radical plan to tackle the problem. London will adopt a scheme that transformed the culture of violence that had taken hold in Glasgow.
A report in 2005 showed Scots were three times more likely to be murdered than people in England.
And Glasgow was the centre of it – the murder capital of Europe.
Murders were recorded almost every weekend, victims of knife and gun crime swamped hospitals.
So authorities decided to set up a scheme that involved prevention of violent crimes instead of solving them. Violence was treated as a public health issue – like a disease.
And it worked. The trends reversed. The murder rate has almost halved. Knife crime has fallen drastically. And – in a wider turnaround – 2015 saw Scotland’s lowest crime rate for 40 years. Here’s the thing, though – the Scottish model took a long time to bear fruit. The picture will be the same in London. Mr Khan has set in motion something which will – probably – take a decade to yield results. That’s real, grown-up, serious politics in action. And there’s a lot to do. This is the first step, base camp. Because this is long-term thinking. An attempt to tackle the problem at its source.
The Scottish model saw police, schools, social workers and hospitals teaming up to share information.
Fix
They built a culture of early intervention. And slowly, very slowly, they changed the culture of gangs and violence.
Karyn Mccluskey, who ran the project in Scotland, said: “People are looking for a quick fix, but there are no quick fixes. If there were we would have done it years ago.” So this scheme is now in motion. Violent crime in the capital will not vanish overnight. There will be more headlines, more deaths, things might even get worse before they improve.
But this is a scheme that works – and it’s a scheme that shows Mr Khan is not just an astute politician but a responsible one. He hasn’t chased the quick fix or the easy option.
He’s introduced a system that – if people are patient – should change life in London for good.