Issue - meetings

The Board were advised of two motions which had been referred to them at the Full Council meeting held on 10^th July 2019. 

1.         Youth Council Motion related to Knife Crime:

“In the Year up to March 2018, in a report by the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS), analysis of knife crime figures showed that the number of fatal stabbings in England and Wales was at its highest level since 1946.  With just less than 5,000 young people, aged 10 to 17, cautioned or convicted of a knife related crime and an 45% increase in the number of people, aged 16 to 24, that had been a victim of knife crime, it appears to be at epidemic levels.

It must be mentioned as well that this is not a London based problem as suggested by some media.  Thankfully the report showed Oldham was not in the top ten when looking at numbers of homicides per 100,000 population, however, other North West areas were in the top 10 rankings of ‘worst place for killings’.

In our 2018 Make Your Mark consultation, 2,167 young people voted to ‘Put an End to Knife Crime’ as their number one issues that needs to be tackled in Oldham.  This was the top issue, coming higher than ending homelessness and equal pay for equal work.  Given this was voted by our constituents we have made this a priority.  As such Oldham Youth Council wanted to dig deeper into this issue so used 10-forward survey, going out into our communities to consult with young people to find out why they feel knife crime is an issue and what can be done to reduce it.

Our surveys would suggest that most of Oldham’s young people do not carry bladed weapons, but 14% of respondents did admit to having carried a knife.  Half of these suggested they carried a knife for legitimate reasons, such as for Duke of Edinburgh Award or for eating their lunches, but the other half felt they needed it for protection.  If this result is suggestive of the numbers of young people carrying bladed weapons it would seem to be much higher than the number of young people cautioned or convicted, which represents less than 1% of the 10 to 17-year-old population.  The survey responses also showed that nearly 40% of young people knew someone who had carried a knife.  While this doesn’t give an indication of levels of knife crime it may suggest that young people who do carry knives or bladed weapons are happy to share this fact to brag or intimidate, which, may lead to more fear in young people and a need for protection that they assume a knife brings.

Those who don’t carry knives were concerned that they could be arrested and that they could be injured by carrying knives.  This would appear to show that current awareness and education is working for young people but probably only for those who wouldn’t pick up knives anyway.  We as Oldham  ...  view the full minutes text for item 15