Gun and Knife Crime

Criminology has much to offer activities to reduce the harm of violent incidents –– particularly by reducing weapon-carrying and use – but the discipline's engagement with the harm reduction agenda has been limited. In addressing this, the paper identifies risk factors for carrying a weapon by a young person in England and Wales. It demonstrates that this decision is influenced by individual-, interpersonal-and community-level factors and that weapon carriers can be distinguished from other respondents using relatively few characteristics. The study also shows that defensive factors, such as victimisation and concerns about personal safety are relevant to understanding weapon-carrying, but they are outweighed by criminogenic factors such as violence, neighbourhood disorder and, importantly, lack of trust in the police.

The Cumberland Lodge Report, Understanding and Policing Gangs, explores the attraction to gangs, to improve public understanding and inform approaches to policing them more effectively.

It draws on the wisdom and experience of a cross-sector delegation of police officers, academics and researchers, non-governmental organisations, policymakers and practitioners, who attended a three-day conference at Cumberland Lodge in June 2019.

The key themes and best-practice recommendations that emerged from our independent research and roundtable conference were reviewed and refined at an expert consultation involving diverse conference representatives and further specialists in the field, in October 2019.

A working document outlining the state of knowledge on the carrying and use of weapons in violence in the UK. The paper outlines the limited research on this topic and discusses how research findings from other parts of the world can and cannot be generalised to the UK. The paper list thirteen unanswered questions that are important to the understanding, harm reduction and prevention of weapon violence in the UK. Each of the twelve questions is accompanied by a very brief summary of the literature.

The publication of the Inquiry following the fatal stabbing of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence was a landmark in moves toward addressing ‘institutional racism’ in the police. On its 20th anniversary, a one-day event was held in London to explore progress and changes still needed, with key stakeholders (160):  individuals and organisations from minority communities and serving and retired senior officers from the police. The conversation took place online through participants’ own laptops, using a tool that allows the capture of text input from an unlimited number of anonymous networked sources simultaneously.
The majority view was that some change had occurred since the SLI, but too little. A thematic analysis showed three familiar concerns remain dominant: the practice of Stop and Search; police engagement with local communities; and recruitment, retention and promotion of officers from BAME backgrounds. Numerous constructive suggestions for improved practice were offered together with a community willingness to contribute to making the required changes, as long as the initiatives involved a more equal partnership. For instance, in advising and monitoring police practice, funded development work, planning change, and in leadership roles in the service.
This underlying theme is argued here to be reflective of long established beliefs in the need for clearly demonstrated procedural justice,  best made apparent through strong collaborative relationships. It suggests that co-production be further embedded into stop and search, community policing, and recruitment, retention and progression: drawing on the assets of the citizens served, and staff recruited, to bring new insights on what matters most to them and how to achieve it.

Whilst quantitative research to date gives us some indication of the prevalence at which knife-carrying occurs among young British men, there have been few explanations for why it occurs, and for what the relationship might be between broader social issues of control and power and the behaviours of young men themselves. Drawing on interviews with 16 young white British men, the present paper explores the ways in which the sample accounted for knife-carrying. Two interpretative repertoires were identified: 1) attributions of blame to authorities for a lack of protection and a subsequent justification of knife-carrying, and 2) discussions of masculinity in relation to knife-carrying. The findings suggest that what is required are policy and practice responses that take into account the symbolic functions of knives for young white men, and which recognise the dilemmatic bind that such men are caught in when they attempt to negotiate competing demands of protection and control.

This presentation focused on the misuse of online culture, memes and gaming towards the end of religious violence perpetrated in the Christchurch Massacre in 2019. The shooter prior and during the attack cited motivation and influence from the children’s beloved video game Spyro the Dragon, the modern popular shooter Fortnite and Felix Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie. These seemingly unconnected sources melded into a stream of consciousness by the shooter, flowing directly from the meme hive mind of 4Chan and 8Chan. In an effort to stop ‘shitposting’ and make a ‘real life effort post’, the shooter would continue to game the media in brief appearances at court in an effort to break through to the online world. The ends of this exhibition, largely unexplored, will be explored in this presentation, examining the reason for the type of engagement and showing a mode of religious intolerance, fabricated superiority and invented notoriety.

The publication of the Inquiry following the fatal stabbing of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence was a landmark in moves toward addressing ‘institutional racism’ in the police. On its 20th anniversary, a one-day event was held in London to explore progress and changes still needed, with key stakeholders (160):  individuals and organisations from minority communities and serving and retired senior officers from the police. The conversation took place online through participants’ own laptops, using a tool that allows the capture of text input from an unlimited number of anonymous networked sources simultaneously.
The majority view was that some change had occurred since the SLI, but too little. A thematic analysis showed three familiar concerns remain dominant: the practice of Stop and Search; police engagement with local communities; and recruitment, retention and promotion of officers from BAME backgrounds. Numerous constructive suggestions for improved practice were offered together with a community willingness to contribute to making the required changes, as long as the initiatives involved a more equal partnership. For instance, in advising and monitoring police practice, funded development work, planning change, and in leadership roles in the service.
This underlying theme is argued here to be reflective of long established beliefs in the need for clearly demonstrated procedural justice,  best made apparent through strong collaborative relationships. It suggests that co-production be further embedded into stop and search, community policing, and recruitment, retention and progression: drawing on the assets of the citizens served, and staff recruited, to bring new insights on what matters most to them and how to achieve it.