We asked Sadiq Khan, the Met and the Home Office about teenage stabbings in London. This is what they said.
📰Full story: bit.ly/3n5aiAf
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🔴2021 was the worst year for teenage killings in London on record, with a grim total of 30 teenagers killed on the capital’s streets.
Grieving families are demanding answers from policy makers. Here’s what they had to say.
🔴Asked for comment by MyLondon, both the government and the Mayor of London were keen to focus on police resources, rather than sentencing🚔
🔴Sadiq Khan says he’s supporting the Met Police to reduce violent crime by “investing record amounts in policing.”
💰Council tax is due to go up by the maximum amount this year, partly to fund the Met’s violent crime efforts.
🔴The Home Office also says it's paid for more than 2,000 extra Met police officers since 2019.
🚔But in reality, overall police funding in London is barely up since 2012.
🔴The Mayor of London criticised the government for not giving him enough cash for the Met Police.
🏛️Meanwhile, government ministers accused him of failing to use the resources effectively.
🔴Despite the grim statistics, ministers and the Mayor of London pointed to an overall decline in crime in recent years.
Knife crime across England and Wales fell by 15 per cent from 2020 to 2021.
🔴In 2019, the mayor set up the Violence Reduction Unit, which treats crime as a public health issue.
Mr Khan says it will support almost 100,000 more young Londoners next year.
🔎But Conservatives have criticised the scheme for an alleged lack of transparency.
🔴The mother of 14-year-old Jermaine Cools, who was stabbed to death in West Croydon last November, says it’s all about changing the mentality of young people.
Lorraine Dudek believes there is a toxic culture which glorifies violence and makes carrying a knife feel inevitable.
🗣️“You have to change the whole mentality. The mentality is if you don’t carry a knife you’ll be killed by one, if you don’t join a gang you’ll be killed by one."
🔴Jermaine's mum also believes that killers involved in gangs are not worried about prison.
🗨️"They see that they've got friends inside jail, making drill songs and glorifying the deaths," she says.
🔴Mr Khan insists that knife crime and youth violence overall is falling, but “due to the increasing ferocity of the attacks, this hasn’t yet translated to fewer teenage homicides.”
For the grieving parents and families this year, those words will offer little comfort.
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