Issue - meetings

This report presents to the Children, Adults, Health and Wellbeing Policy Development & Scrutiny Panel the findings and recommendations to emerge from the Task Group review of Knife Crime Prevention.

The Chair introduced the report to the Panel. She explained that part of the role of the Task Group had been to review current approaches to the prevention of knife crime across Bath and North East Somerset, to review knife crime prevention national best practice examples and to consider opportunities for improving prevention of knife crime across Bath and North East Somerset.

Councillor Eleanor Jackson addressed the Panel and explained that she had been a member of the Task Group. She said that incidents that have occurred in the local community have had a huge impact on residents.

She said that she felt that social media influence, the pandemic and exclusions from school were factors to be taken into account into the incidents that took place.

She raised three points for the Panel to be aware of:

i)  Deaths - The victims in a number of the incidents could be classed as innocent parties with no previous connection to their assailants or involvement in crime.

ii)  Mental Health support - need to take into account properly what is required to support young people with mental health needs.

iii)  Bullying – should more of a link have been made to this as a contributing factor.

She concluded by suggesting whether a module on Knife Crime should be included in the syllabus for schools to be able to raise awareness of the issue.

The Chair thanked Councillor Jackson for those comments and for her contributions to the work of the Task Group.

Councillor Joanna Wright asked why it was young males that were the main perpetrators of such crimes.

The Chair agreed that gender definitely was a factor and that girls seemed to be much less involved in incidents of this nature. She said the Task Group had looked at the factors such as peer pressure and the glamorisation of knife crime as part of their work.

She added that it was hoped that the steps being taken by the Council and its partners on Early Help would lead to the creation of better outcomes for our local children and young people.

The Chair commented that the ongoing work of the Violence Reduction Partnership would address these issues.

Councillor Paul Crossley asked if data was available on the types of knives used in these incidents.

The Chair replied that the data was not broken down to that level for the work of the Task Group.

The Panel RESOLVED to;

i)  Endorse the Task Group’s findings and recommendations, and;

ii)  Agree for the recommendations to be forwarded to the Cabinet/Cabinet Member for response.