London’s mayoral election is looming and the two leading candidates have been jousting and generally sniping at each other for several tiresome months now. As ever the political discourse is more about who can be more smug, condescending and generally clever regarding their opponent.

This is nothing out of the ordinary, but as so much has a tendency to do, started my thinking when the candidates in question started to “debate” the current so-called epidemic of youth knife crime.

Despite the numbers of knife-related criminal acts remaining pretty much static, we are being commanded by our chums in the media, law enforcement and government that it is a Big Deal. Certainly I have no issue with condemning those who cause harm, or threaten to do so with a knife (or edged weapon as it is referred to in official statistics), however I have no issue with condemning anyone who would cause harm or threaten to do so with any means. Violence = bad, as far as I’m concerned.

This is however, not the point of this particular posting. Knife crime has become a political hot potato. Because the media has commanded us to pay attention to it, coming up with some awesome sounding anti-knife-crime policy as a political figure is a surefire way to win some points in whatever debate you’re in. Again, all fine and dandy, that’s the way the game is played, however not once in the discussion have I heard anything but curative measures.

Tougher jail sentences, new-fangled criminal meets victim psychological stuff ranging to draconian string em up type treatments to this social illness have been proposed and met with varied excitable responses from whichever political party suggested it, but it seems to me that none of that stuff has worked before, why should it start working now?

We are told that inner cities have become a breeding ground for gang culture (and that we should be suitably terrified) but at no point does anyone seem to ask why. Knife crime is on the rise, but why is that? Why, it seems to me, is the single most important question that can be asked.

Suggested reasons for this growth in organisation and behaviour range from movies, to music, to (obviously) violent video games, and maybe there’s a grain of truth in there but it’s not the cause. It’s been debated that the breakdown of the traditional family unit has left young people with no strong role models, but that’s nonsense – there are role models everywhere, from the aforementioned entertainment demons to the biggest role model of all: our lovely government.

This isn’t a “Labour are bad” speech. They’re no worse than any other political party and I have a dilemma of which way to spoil my ballot every time there’s an election. No, they are the strongest role model there is.

Ever since the War On Terror™ was started we have been trained by the powers that be to be afraid. To be suspicious. We’ve been taught that CCTV is there to protect us, that the watchmen are to be trusted implicitly and that Bad Terrorists exist around every corner. We’ve also been trained that in the event of someone or a group of people attacking your area you find a suitable candidate (where you can ideally gain something) and you beat the shit out of it.

This role model is effectively telling us to be paranoid and that the best solution is a violent one.

So, I blame the government for knife crime? No. I’m not that retarded, however the message we’re being fed is a clear one. I’m not going to pretend I understand gang culture entirely, having not been brought up in an inner city with an atmosphere of paranoia, with no real hope of getting out to a better existence, while being bombarded with images of celebrity excess and thinking “I gotta get me a piece of that” but it strikes me that getting a few of your pals together to protect you and yours might be an appealing notion.

I neither demonise nor heroise (new word, use it at your leisure) those involved in this surge of gangs I am told exists, but I can see why this situation might come into effect.

All the talk of punishment from our politicians is going to accomplish nothing. Problems should, where possible, be resolved at source. Remove the perceived need for people to feel the need to be armed, give them something to aim for and most of all set a good example. It really can’t be that hard. Violence begets violence, the end.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Politics, Ranty, Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.