Monday 30 March 2009

Why is Effective Knife Crime Reduction Model Not Copied?

Writing in today's Times Chris Huhne asks why the simple, commonsense approach started by one Cardiff based cosmetic surgeon has not been repeated across the board?

The premise is simple without breaking patient doctor confidentiality the surgeon provides the location, day and times of the attacks on those victims he has to work on. The police have been able to use the anonymised data to target hotspots at the right time and the 40% reduction is the proof in the pudding.

But it hasn't been taken up in other health trusts despite backing of both The National Policing Improvement Agency and the General Medical Council. It is also part of of the Government's Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP). Not somehow it is not a matter of course across the hospitals in the country. As the Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesman says it would seem to be a fairly commonsense approach. I mean look at any crime series on TV or film, they using mapping of serial events to try and close in on the suspect. I mean knife crime is not happening on every street corner all of the time. It is happening primarily in certain areas and possibly at certain days in the weekend and even maybe at certain times.

Looking into this sort of information is a far more effective use of police time and resources in helping reduce crime, deterring it from happening is better than then having to try and deal with the consequences. As Chris points out the scheme was dreamed up by a healer as part of what he saw as his duty as part of a National Health Service rather than merely a cure service. Surely we should be looking at ways like this of the police being part of a Crown Prevention of Crime Service rather than merely as part of a prosecution service.

1 comment:

  1. Although many knife incidents no doubt never get reported to the police surely if hotspots exist then they would have sufficient knowledge anyway without having the additional info from the hospitals?

    Perhap's the real merit of the surgeon's project was that it highlighted to police the fact that there might be a pattern to these things!!

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