10 years for carrying a knife

[Hoover2025]

I have just watched question time. Everyone saying it’s complicated. We couldn’t have stopped this.

But we could have done.

This male was caught with a knife in public twice. If he had been jailed he wouldn’t have been free to commit these murders. Sure that might have just delayed things. But maybe not. He wouldn’t internet access anymore. Isolation to radicalise himself. There’s also a chance someone would have said there’s something not right with you and they might have had treatment of some kind.

I also think generally this will reduce knife crime drastically. I’m pretty sure >90% of people carrying knives aren’t actually murdering / or planning to murder someone at that very point in time. Something happens and then the knife comes out.

Why is no talking about this as the obvious step. It’s not the complicated problem of knife access/ purchase. It’s quite simply - you carry and you lose your freedom.

UK prisons are full to overflowing. There is an urgent need to sort out prison capacity before this kind of stuff gets considered.

We would also need to have a lot of stop and search stuff to make this remotely efficacious.

There's no reason to have a knife outside of your home or workplace (e.g chef). If someone is caught with a knife, yes I believe it should be treated as though they are carrying a gun and they should receive prison time.

But with overcrowding I don't know how it would be enforced.

I see why you're saying this but as you cannot criminalize all knives it can't work eg I could be jailed for carrying a birthday cake for someone into work along with some plates and a knife. I do this occasionally. Or, recently I bought a lovely Sabatier knife block and had to get it home. You can tell me these are completely different scenarios to carrying a knife with intent to harm (or for perceived self defense even) because of course common sense tells you they are exceptions, but common sense has never stopped stupid abuse of any draconian law.

Locking up mostly teenagers, mostly poor, mostly male, mostly living in difficult areas, a lot whom are Black. For ten years? Taking their entire youth for carrying something? And most of them are carrying them out of fear, stupidity or bravado, all of which are teenage diseases and they grow out of them quickly.

There's something called paedophobia, fear of young people. Instead of seeing that if young men are walking around with knives, we've failed them. Whether that's not tackling male violence in their youth, too wide a gap between rich and poor, a lack of social mobility, a lack of care, a lack of jobs and training, shitty schools, mums struggling, no youth outreach, no fun stuff to do that's not dodgy. Whatever it is, it didn't come from nowhere.

What on earth these young men would be like after ten years inside. I don't think they will magically turn into upstanding members of society. But they could if they don't get locked up and many do.

I think if you're carrying a birthday cake as well as a knife then you're probably not out to murder. You probably also only need a certain kind of knife for that (ie not with a pointy end).

I'm pretty sure the police are intelligent enough to weed out the innocent here!

Agree a mandatory sentence for carrying a knife. Why should our children pay the price for prison overcrowding? That problem clearly needs to be a priority.

Also deporting should absolutely be an option where offenders are not here legally.

Oh, and if you just bought a knife you'd be able to produce a receipt. Again, not rocket science.

I'm pretty sure the police are intelligent enough to weed out the innocent* middle class white women here!*

Corrected that for you. Because that's what everyone means at the end of the day. The police won't stop me, all white and bring. They'll stop young, Black men.

When I was young in South London, the white private school boys did more and harder drugs than my Black friends. But they were never, and I mean NEVER stopped. Which means the statistics said that it was the Black kids who were criminals.

What will happen is that the stupid kid who carries a knife because he's scared will be found, because he's a young Black man. And we can all merrily buy fancy Japanese knives and cut cakes and pretend it's fair or reasonable. While he's in prison.

Actually work with the causes. Properly, with money and time and skill and energy.

Ban men carrying knives. I doubt women carrying a legal blade has led to many murders but there's plenty of reason for women to have them these days.

Tbf I don’t think QE11 actually carried the sword that she used to cut the cake 😂 - she had staff for that.

Spoken with huge dollops of middle class privilege there.

MrsTerryPratchett

Who said anything about profiling?

I just said if someone is carrying a birthday cake (or a receipt) along with their knife then chances are they aren't out to kill children.

A bit of common sense wouldn't hurt here.

A lot of the arguments against this seem silly to me.

Plastic, disposable knives are fine for cutting cakes.

If we want to purchase knives it can be done online, delivered to our homes where we have to produce ID. (Some retailers already do this).

There really isn't any reason why it is necessary to be walking around with a knife and a few slight inconveniences would be completely worth it in my opinion.

@hehehesorry

No, sorry. A woman in my county got arrested for attempted murder last week for stabbing another woman in the street. According to reports, they didn't know each other, so there was either some altercation or it was a random attack.

Logic says that if you carry a knife, you're likely to use it should a situation arise. Even if you don't carry it with the intention to murder someone, if you happened to be walking down a dark alley with your birthday cake and knife and someone attacked you, damn right you'd use it. Which means you'd be another knife crime stat, and possibly done for murder.

The law is clear. We're not allowed to carry pepper spray or any offensive weapons in this country. Women don't get a free pass on fucking knives.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

Everyone must learn that regardless of colour sex creed or age

I'm fucking done with making excuses, if you're carrying a knife you're out to do harm, I couldn't give two shits the "trauma" that started that path and oh it's ok there there but as a country we need to fucking finish it. Jail.

What do you think happens to people, particularly young people, in prisons?

Particularly young people who end up there for a silly mistake - like forgetting you have your work knife (lots and lots of reasons to carry a knife, at least two of my bags will have a knife in them I think, I carve wood, I also sharpen artist grade pencils with a scalpel easily sharp enough to kill with. When I worked on stable yards I always had a folding knife in my pocket, and I would absolutely go from yard to supermarket/round town before going home.)

Do you think they grow up, learn some useful skills and come out lovely people?

Or do you think they become more bitter, less well adjusted, and more distrusting of authority, more hatred toward authority and anyone they perceive as different to them... after spending years with only other criminals to associate with?

People carry knifes to do harm to others because of fear, on the whole. The solution is to get rid of that fear. How, I don't know. But thats the answer.

Prison is a very poor solution to a problem, it isn't a deterrent to those determined to commit crime, particularly hate crime. It isn't a deterrent for whom prison is a normal part of every day life. It is not a deterrent for people who believe wholeheartedly that their behaviour/actions are acceptable.

Yes I can see how the Southport stabber was afraid of those little girls

Do me a fucking favour

im general terms, locking more people up for longer doesn’t tend to reduce crime. I guess in this case it may have prevented this one horrific crime but we only know that in retrospect. That’s not a basis for policy making.

Stop and frisk worked in America and it will work in Britain too.

But activists will hate it for reasons I’m sure you can work out

El Salvador begs to differ. Turns out when you lock violent people up, they cannot commit crime

America locks loads of people up and has very high levels of crime. The Scandinavian countries take a very different approach which seems to help reduce crime rates in general. I don’t know much about El Salvador but I can imagine the scale of the gang related crime issues provided the basis for very extreme action. In the context of what ‘locking people up more’ is realistically going to look like in this country (which probably won’t be much like El Salvador), evidence suggests it won’t work.

Update your priors.

We have had criminal justice ‘reform’ in many cities that has let criminals out on bail with rap sheets a mile long.

We had fewer problems in the 90s and early 2000s when three strikes rule was in place (Bill Clinton was an amazing president for this)

Again, if wood carving is your hobby, no doubt there would be evidence in your home to this effect.

There is a possibility for nuance.

I'm not sure what people want exactly with these arguments. I'm at a bit of a loss.

You want people to continue being stabbed?

I could be jailed for carrying a birthday cake for someone into work along with some plates and a knife. I do this occasionally

This is literally the only justification I can see. Not work cakes tbh because surely someone has a knife in an office. But Picnics yes obviously someone might need a knife. There are types of knives though. Maybe someone needs to design a legal picnic knife.

Knives which have just been purchased are easy. They stay in packaging and must be able to present with a receipt from that day.

Knives for work also easy. Most are clearly designed for that work and are designed to be as safe to user. Maybe apply for a knife license of somesort. We have licenses for everything else.

I agree the reason no one’s talking about this is because we probably don’t have the prison capacity to house this many people. But I’m with @kinkytoes here. Why should our children pay the price for prison overcrowding?

Locking up mostly teenagers, mostly poor, mostly male, mostly living in difficult areas, a lot whom are Black. For ten years? Taking their entire youth for carrying something? And most of them are carrying them out of fear, stupidity or bravado, all of which are teenage diseases and they grow out of them quickly.
And I’m really not buying that @MrsTerryPratchett

Yes these are exactly the people (not necessarily black but young and stupid) that shouldn’t be carrying knifes! Part of the rationale is surely they are fearful because other people are carrying knives. I don’t think bravado is a mitigating factor. If anything that’s worse.

Oh, FFS! Axel Rudakubana attacked a student at his former school with a hockey stick and upon arrest was found to also be carrying a knife. He was later found to be carrying a knife on a bus. He did not tell the police he was taking a birthday cake into work/going to a picnic in a park/a private chef on his way to a job. He told them he wanted to stab and kill somebody ........ and nothing was done. This despite his extensive, and by then documented, history of violence and disturbed behaviour. This isn't about the police racially profiling anybody. There couldn't be a more clear-cut case of carrying a knife with violent intent.

The police, politicians and community groups wang on about knife crime and teaching young people not to carry knives and now we found out if a violent offender is caught in possession of one he will be delivered home to mummy and told not to do it again. And then they act all shocked when the sadistic fucker goes out and murders people. It's just pathetic.

Are you sure about that? Violent and knife crime in Sweden for example is massively on the increase. Softly, softly just doesn't work. Prison is no deterent but at least the little fuckers are off the streets. They can shank each other in their cells rather than amongst decent folk.