Parties want mandatory jail terms for knife thugs.
The Herald: 14 May 2009 >> article

There are growing demands from opposition parties for anyone carrying a knife to face a mandatory jail term.

VIEWPOINT: Calls for mandatory prison sentences for anyone found carrying a knife are understandable but fail to address underlying issues. Such a proposal would also appear unworkable in its suggested form.

The expectation of an automatic prison sentence for anyone attacking another with a knife is one thing - it is certainly necessary to send out a clear message in this respect. But are they really advocating locking up boy scouts carrying penknives; people on hunting or fishing trips or chefs, on their way to work with a roll of knives? Knives are readily available in every home and always will be. Tighter controls on the sale of hunting knives or a registration system, similar to firearm registration should be considered to limit their availability but it is the cycle of violent behaviour – particularly among the young which must be addressed.

Very many young people who carry knives do so out of fear of attack on themselves and with the misplaced feeling of security that possessing a potentially deadly weapon brings. Putting these people behind bars in not an answer and has a number of adverse effects:

• It criminalises them and very often encourages more violent behaviour as they are exposed to violent offenders in prison.
• More prisoners just places increased strain on a prison system already creaking at the edges. This means even fewer opportunities for valuable rehabilitation work within prisons as they become little more than warehouses.

Until this cycle of violent behaviour is addressed the problem will remain. Sacro firmly believes that violence among young people is best addressed with the involvement of the community they live in.

Sacro already carries out work with schools to help inform young people in ways of dealing with conflict effectively. Similar Sacro services exist to help address intergenerational conflict and our Street Mediation service helps communities to understand and share their community with groups of young people. Providing services like these with the resources they need to educate and inform young people about dealing with conflict will yield much greater rewards than imprisonment ever can.