Earlier this month, MPs Lyn Brown and Stephen Timms held an event in Parliament on Solving Youth Violence. They were joined by a number of experts and other MPs to discuss effective ways to tackle child criminal exploitation.
The event consisted of three panel discussions. The first provided an insight from policing, the second focused on contextual safeguarding, and the third looked at interventions through Children’s Services and other agencies. A number of speakers contributed, including from the police, academics, and representatives of projects and community-led initiatives working in this area.
Youth crime is on the rise in the UK. Though knife crime, gun crime and teenage murders have decreased in London over the last five years, drug related offences have increased in the Capital since the lifting of lockdown restrictions – particularly for suspects aged 18-25. London still shows comparatively high and more widespread levels of crime, and young people are disproportionately at higher risk of becoming offenders.
Recent research has found a strong link between young people in poverty as more vulnerable to being groomed into youth violence. The London Borough of Newham, which is made up of both Lyn and Stephen’s constituencies of West Ham and East Ham, is in the top 10% most deprived authorities, and had an overall crime rate in 2021 of 93 crimes per 1,000 people.
During the Solving Youth Violence event, MPs and experts considered proactive approaches to tackling this issue of rising youth crime including through better investing in youth services, promoting fairness in the criminal justice system, and replicating the good work already being done through community and faith-based organisations. Some specific resolutions discussed included introducing a requirement to register mobile phones in the owner’s name to promote transparency, including the exploitation of children in order to help commit a crime as an aggravating circumstance in sentencing, and raising the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales from 10.
Lyn and Stephen hope to draw up a number of conclusions with a set of actions to combat youth violence, following these helpful and enlightening discussions.
Speaking after the event, Lyn said: “in Newham we have lost so many children because of grooming and exploitation by criminals for profit. It’s clear the current approach is failing vulnerable children across the country and harming our communities. It is so important to bring experts together to inform our work and this event provided powerful ideas for Stephen and I to take forward.”
Stephen said “I enjoyed hearing on tackling youth violence from our panel of experts and am grateful to them for sharing their expertise. In Newham, many local initiatives support young people and build community cohesion. However, central Government needs to increase its support for young people at risk of violence to deliver the real change that we need.”