The re-raising of knife crime as an issue was inevitable and so it has proved with even a cursory glance at the headlines today.
Labour are scenting blood on this topic and are keen to paint the SNP as that most appalling of political characteristics ‘soft on crime’. The Lib Dems on the other hand are in favour of quashing all sentences of less than three months to be replaced with community payback schemes.
While I am in favour of the latter and sceptical of the former, I should entertain the possibility that mandatory prison sentences should be applied to anyone who carries a knife.
For a start, Scotland is the sick man of Europe in terms of alcohol and diet and I am in favour of radical action to improve our standards as a result, including the minimum pricing of alcohol for example. So what is mandatory jail terms for knife-carrying but a radical proposal to a problem that sees us at the wrong end of the table for such crimes?
The main problem I have is that the debate has thus far been skin deep and, as far as I am aware, has not fully considered the notion of where these prisons that will hold the tens of thousands of knife-wielders will be housed. Money is tight, compromises have to be made so should those compromises extend to how many people we can incarcerate behind bars? The jury is no doubt out on that one.
Kenny MacAskill does seem to be attempting a fine-balancing act, boasting that average length of jail terms have increased under his watch while neatly overlooking the fact that most criminals who are found guilty of their knife-wielding crimes do not go to jail. It is fair to say that one can’t have it both ways, adopting a policy of no jail terms for some but seeking to lengthen jail terms for others, certainly not without a crystal clear explanation.
I am personally of a liberal nature which is why I find myself intuitively siding with the Lib Dem/SNP approach rather than that of the Tory/Labour benches but until the ramifications of each side’s knife policy are discussed in full, we’ll be going nowhere fast on addressing one of Scotland’s many ills.
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I think a really basic point that everyone misses here is that scrapping short sentences means that anybody given a custodial sentence for knife crime would be given a sentence of a MINIMUM of six months. Giving a shorter sentence than that would not usually be an option. (have to qualify that because the SNP is not proposing mandatory sentencing but a presumption, judges and sherrifs would still have discretion to give short sentences where they felt it was best). But generally speaking all the people currently in jail serving less than 6 months for carrying a knife would not - as Labour suggest - be walking the streets under the SNP's policy. In fact they would be serving a LONGER sentence.
Why this point seems to be so frequently overlooked I don't know because it seems pretty obvious to me.
The other obvious point is that if we are to increase the severity of sentencing for violent offenders - which I am 100% in favour of - it means clearing out the non-violent offenders from prisons. That would include the Abdul Raufs of this world. People who have committed serious offences but who are not a danger to anyone.
If we can somehow build a consensus that non-violent, non-dangerous offenders should be punished in the community while dangerous people are locked up we might just be in a position to make progress.
The other point I would make - and forgive me for being blunt here - is that the kind of person who carries a knife is not going to be deterred by the prospect of a mandatory sentence because they are essentially thick.
Rosie Kane would shoot me for saying it but knife carriers are almost invariably neds and most of them would have difficulty stringing together a coherent sentence never mind assessing the risk factor of carrying a knife in terms of sentencing policy.
The biggest deterrent for people like that is having many more police and the police being proactive about stopping and searching people who look like they might be carrying.
I'm still unclear on how mandatory prison sentences for people carrying knives would apply to carpenters or other people who require a knife for their job, or how you would get a knife from the shop to your house. Willie Bain was asked this at more than one hustings for Glasgow NE, and I expected him to say it was a frivolous question and of course there would be provisions to exempt such people. But no, he just kept repeating the mantra of "carry a knife, go to jail", as if such people would indeed be banged up. I assume he was just ill-informed about what was being proposed?
If every person found in possession of a knife goes to prison we had better lease prison accommodation around the world.
Some tremendous points Indy and, not for the first time, I reckon if you were in the Cabinet Scotland would be better off for it.
Jeff
I had a carpet fitter in my house the other week. This guy was carrying a knife that he said he needed to cut the carpets, should I have believed him?
Did I make a mistake letting this guy in my house and am I guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal act in my premises by letting him use his knife.
Will Scotland be the only country in the world with no fitted carpets due to Labours knife ban?
Can Labour really get any more stupid???
Dubbieside
Labour can get even more stupid, the election has not ben announced and when they do, well it s case of we aint seen nothing yet as to how stupid they will get!
Anne makes some (extremely) good points there…
I was only going to ad a few things…
1) Labour are lying. Again. If you read their "mandatory sentence" amendment, it shows quite clearly it's not mandatory. It (quite rightly) allows Judges/Sheriff's the right to say "no, they don't deserve 6 months" and not pass that sentence.
2) It's a bad policy. I live in Greenock, a place "blighted" by knife crime. John Muir is just down the road from me, and I've met him on several occasions. I have immense sympathy for him and his families loss. But I don't think the Scottish Parliament should take legal policy from a grieving man who has lost his son to knife crime.
The law, as Aristotle remarked, should be reason, free from passion.
I don't believe John Muir is capable of that, and understandably so. This is is a vital issue that goes to the very core of our society. Locking someone up, without looking at their motives and circumstances is an automatic assumption of guild, and in our society, one should be innocent until proven guilty. Mandatory sentences are never a good idea. That's why we have the judiciary, in order that they can judge a person's guilt and what their punishment (if any) should be.
3) The SNP policy of doing away with short-term sentences is a bold move, but a right one. All <6-month sentences do is cost us all money and give the tabloids a sense of justified "he got his". Justice and punishment should be about more than just pacifying the Daily Mail readers.
4) and this follows on from 3); we don't have the money. With the best will in the world, even if locking people up for carrying a penknife whilst out fishing were a good idea (and it's really really not), we have neither the money nor prison places to put them in. And I notice no-one is really clamouring to have a prison built next to them either. Prison sentences should usually be about keeping people off the streets that are a danger to society. A lot of sentences currently are clearly not. I personally believe if someone commits fraud, they should be made to work for the community and stripped of their assets, not liberty. Prison should be for dangerous criminals. Now, you might argue that someone carrying a knife is a dangerous criminal (although I'd note I don't believe that. Someone who stabs someone with a knife is dangerous, merely carrying one, despite the best attempts of the Daily Mail et al, is not a dangerous act in and of itself. Motive and circumstances count here), but even if it is, if they have committed no other crime than carrying a knife, surely it depends on whether they were just out fishing and got permit-checked and had a penknife, or if they got lifted for hanging around the off-licence with a machete, as to whether they deserve a stern warning from a beak, or a stay at Her Majesty's pleasure…
I'd also note that the way Labour here in Inverclyde and even in Holyrood, Iain Grey was discussing Mr. Muir a while back) are using John Muir is truly despicable to watch. Talk about exploitation! He's obviously a grief-stricken man who (no matter how misguided he is) feels he is doing something to make sure no other father has to go through what he has. Labour are just riding him to the ballot-box, laughing all the way, in the full and certain knowledge that if they ever get back into power, all of a sudden no-one will be around to take Mr. Muir's calls anymore. Sickening.
The SNP policy as I understand it is based on evidence. All the evidence points the one way, that short sentences and the revolving door effect don't work.
When we talk about knife crime we are really talking about a problem which exists in specific areas, and with specific groups of people, both as victims and perpetrators.
It is a cultural issue, and you don't resolve that with a knee jerk reaction by way of mandatory sentencing.
There are lots of social issues which are a problem in Scotland. Poverty, inter-generational worklesness, addiction, functional innumeracy and illiteracy, poor housing, crime, recidivism, poor health, premature mortality.
Guess what they are all linked.
Just shoving people into jail doesn't work, we've tried it, it just makes it worse.
It is not liberal to support the policies that the SNP are pursuing on this and other issues. It is practical. The danger is of course that the tabloid attitude adopted by Labour will work. The media will support their view, the media actually quite like crime it sells a lot of papers.
It's a complex issue and it's how to convey the message that is perhaps the problem.
Talking about knife edges, does anyone else think those MSPs who refused to cross a picket-line in order to attend a meeting on violent crime were... oh, I don't know... disgraces to Scotland (like, I have to admit, is most of Scotland).
Alec lots of MSPs are members of trade unions and as you may know TU members don't generally cross official picket lines. That's not unique to Scotland.
Who's Anne?
Is Math confusing 'Indy' with 'Indygal' I wonder? Surely that has to go down as a schoolboy error by now...
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