Screamed the Telegraph!!!

The majority of Britons want National Service to be reintroduced, a survey shows.

About 69 per cent think that compulsory military service would curb the country's growing yob culture and cut crime.

The survey, by GfK Media, found that 65 per cent of adults think National Service should be used to reduce overcrowding in prisons.

National Service ran from 1945 to 1963, with 2.5 million young men conscripted.

They were used as part of the 100,000-strong occupation force in post-war Germany, to police Palestine and protect Aden and the Suez Canal Zone. Some had an easier time in Singapore, Hong Kong and lesser military bases.

Article continuesadvertisement
Although no politicians have called for National Service to be reintroduced to deal with youth crime and misbehaviour, similar style community work schemes have been put forward.

Last year Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, unveiled a multi-million government scheme, supported by industry, to fund gap years for young people to do voluntary work in Britain and abroad.

David Cameron, the Tory Party leader, recently suggested a compulsory period of up to four months' voluntary work for all school-leavers.

According to this latest survey of 1,266 adults, carried out for ITV's Bad Lad's Army programme, 87 per cent worry about Britain's yob culture.

Only 19 per cent thought that a spell in the military would not stop youngsters behaving badly.

When asked how long that spell should be, two years received the biggest vote, with 33 per cent, and 61 per cent saying that women should do their bit as well as men.


Would this be a good thing and is it realistic?

My dad had to do national service and hated most of it. He was quite happy doing his joinery apprenticeship in the shipyards, but had to go to Germany to serve in the RAF.

Like Steve, my father did National Service.

I'm dead against it.
Anyone who's ever visited the war cemeteries in France and Belgium would tell you the same.

The government exploits our ignorance and goodwill enough, without taking our impressionable young and using them as cannon fodder for wars we have no business being in.

I have a Finnish friend, it is compulsory over there.He had to feign mental illness to avoid it!

I agree with Mule too. I'm sure I heard today that knife crime hasn't even increased , it's just those committing it and the victims getting younger. I may be wrong though.

a) Its just not fair on the kids who are alright and not Yobs

b) Where is the proof that this will cure them of their behaviour.

c) I'd feel sorry for the Army, Navy and RAF service men and women who's have to put up with them.

d) I'm not sure giving Yobs and thugs guns and martial training in how to use them is a good idea.

Still if there were half descent punishments for this kind of thing in the first place and less of a PC Nanny culture in the UK it wouldn't be needed.

Su Lin wrote:
I have a Finnish friend, it is compulsory over there.He had to feign mental illness to avoid it!

I agree with Mule too. I'm sure I heard today that knife crime hasn't even increased , it's just those committing it and the victims getting younger. I may be wrong though.

Yes i've heard this also. I think its the fact the media have gotten hold of it like a dog with a chew toy that just keeps squeaking it until the Government start squeaking along. Odd how it all seems to be centred around London. Congestion charge the reason?

Well its interesting isnt it. If you type in Knife Crime statistics you get the newspapers offering balanced accounts such as this:

(From Telegraph site)

Up to 60,000 young people, mostly male, may be stabbed and injured each year, the equivalent of more than 160 victims a day, according to a worst-case estimate for knife violence in England and Wales.

On the other hand, the figure may be around 22,000 each year for victims aged 10 - 25-year-old.

The different between the two estimates - derived from the questioning of around 600 under-25s about whether they had been "knifed or stabbed", and then extrapolated to the wider population, with all the statistical vagaries that entails - reflects the lack of precise information about the scale of knife crime in England and Wales.

It is also unclear whether knife crime is going down or up. Available official statistics suggest it has fallen since the mid-1990s, but the Government concedes the limited figures are far from reliable.

The death of Adam Regis, aged 15, at the weekend, and the stabbing of Kodjo Yenga, a 16-year-old, last week do little to dispel the perception that knife violence is a major problem, though it remains the case that knife murders - for which there are reliable figures - are rare.

Article continuesadvertisement

The two deaths also reflect a reality which is widely acknowledged, even if the scale is unclear. If you are young, male, black or Asian, and you live in a high-crime inner city area, you are far more likely to be a victim of knife violence.

John Reid, for once eschewing the promise of instant legislation, acknowledged the gaps in the picture yesterday when he committed the Home Office to collecting better statistics on the use of knives in crime.

New laws - or perhaps another knife amnesty - would probably have little effect. Knife crime has grown in the last three decades despite the passage of various laws. Last year's Violent Crime Reduction Act banned the sale of knives to anyone under 18.

It was already an offence under the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 to have an offensive weapon in a public place; this includes ''any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person''.

The Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959 banned the carrying, manufacture, sale, purchase, hire or lending of flick-knives and ''gravity knives''. The Criminal Justice Act 1988 contained a list of prohibited martial arts-style weapons and made it an offence to carry an article with a blade or sharp point in a public place. The Offensive Weapons Act 1996 made it illegal to sell knives to children under 16. The Knives Act 1997 prohibited the marketing of combat knives.

There is a wide recognition in policing and criminal justice circles that, unlike gun crime, the pattern of knife crime has not been closely monitored. There is little doubt that gun crime, particularly handgun crime, has more than doubled since Labour came to power - again despite legislation, in the form of a post-Dunblane ban on handguns.

The estimate of up to 57,900 annual "knifing or stabbing" victims comes from the Government's Offending, Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS) which, like the bigger British Crime Survey (BCS), questions people about their experiences of crime.

However, because the number of victims of violence in such surveys are relatively small, extrapolated conclusions are correspondingly less reliable.

The BCS suggests the number of violent incidents involving knives in 2005/2006 was, at 169,000, around half the level of 340,000 in 1995, though it had increased on 2004 - 2005 and had been rising since the previous year The proportion of overall violent incidents involving knives was eight per cent in 1995 and seven per cent in 2005 - 2006.

BCS findings also suggest that the use of knives in woundings, common assaults and robberies followed similar patterns - significant falls on 1995 but an upwards trend since 2003. Homicides involving "sharp instruments" - knives and bottles - have fallen since 1995 as a proportion of overall killings. There were 236 in 2004 - 2005.

There is no statistical uncertainty about someone being stabbed to death. However, the accuracy of other findings have been questioned - not only is the sample of victims of violence relatively small but the BCS does not quiz under-16s, a major tranche of victims.

Police recorded crime statistics - traditionally lower than BCS levels - do not reflect the use of knives and few forces have copied the lead of the Metropolitan Police in analysing knife crime.

Scotland Yard said there had been 11,168 "knife-enabled offences" - covering everything from murder to robbery with a knife - in the 10 months to February this year.

If the Met can be held - crudely in statistical terms - to represent around a fifth of England and Wales crime, that might suggest well more than 60,000 knife-enabled crimes a year. Very roughly, that would fit with the belief of some criminologists that knife crime runs at four times gun crime.

However, it is also clear that knife crime - as gun crime - is not evenly spread. Taking out the knife violence which occurs in the home in domestic attacks, the pattern of "public" knife violence shows, in the words of a report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London: "Knife, like other violent crime, is suffered most by the young, the poor and the black and ethnic minority communities."

As with gun crime, there is concern about the increasingly young age at which people admit carrying knifes, in part to feel "safer." Knife violence has emerged in schools and there have been murders in Lincolnshire as well as London. Guns are more difficult for youngsters to obtain.

However, research has suggested that when young white schoolboys admit to having carried a knife, they are talking about legal pen-knives less than three inches in length.

The use of illegal knives is higher for young men from ethnic minority backgrounds and, invariably, from "less safe" inner city areas.




Then stuff like this:

Gordon Brown says the Government will take "any legislative measures necessary" to tackle knife crime, as Sky News reveals the extent of the problem.

North London youth shows Sky News his knives


Speaking at the G8 summit in Japan, the Prime Minister said it should be "completely unacceptable" for young people to carry a knife on the streets.

It comes as a survey of police officers has found more than 80% believe knife crime has got worse in the last five years, in stark contrast to official statistics.

According to the British Crime Survey, the level of knife crime in the UK has remained stable over recent years.

But a new report published by the Policy Exchange has labelled those findings "misleading", saying they bear no relation to the reality experienced by communities and police forces across the UK.



The Violence Killing Our Teenagers
Twenty teenagers have been violently killed in London so far this year
Most were victims of a knife crime crisis that is spreading across the capital
Sky has detailed each individual tragedy on an interactive map






Speaking to Sky News, one of the report's authors, Jonathan McClory, said: "We polled 1,200 police constables and they've all said that gun and knife crime is much worse than official statistics are saying.

"We need to look at the long-term trends not the year-on-year trends. It's quite easy to manipulate year-on-year shifts which is I think what the Home Office have done".

The report comes as knife crime is already under the media spotlight. So far this year, 15 people under the age of 20 have been stabbed to death in London.

That is just one short of the 16 killed with knives in the capital during the whole of last year.

Just last night Wiltshire Police attended a knife-related incident in which a 13-year-old suffered minor injuries and another 13-year-old was arrested.



12.30pm Lunchtime Debate
Meet two guys at the sharp end of Britain's rampant knife culture. One is a teenage gang-member, the other a self-confessed reformed thug now working as a mentor at a rehabilitation centre trying to turn lives around.





Last week, the Metropolitan Police announced they had increased the number of officers working in their specialist anti-knife crime task force - Operation Blunt 2.

Sky News has become the first news organisation allowed out on patrol with these units.

Last night, a fleet of vans from the Met's Territorial Support Group launched a high-visibility stop-and-search operation in Thornton Heath, south London, where 16-year-old Shakilus Townsend was fatally stabbed last week.

Over several hours, the teams carried out numerous stops. In one incident, a group of young men were seen acting suspiciously in a doorway.

When officers searched them, they found 25 wraps of cannabis in a vehicle belonging to one of the men. He was arrested for possession of a controlled substance with intent to supply.

Sergeant Darren Birmingham told Sky that drugs were linked into a vicious cycle, which often ends in knife or gun violence.

A short distance away, the team stopped three 14-year-old boys. One was carrying the sharp metal shaft of a dismantled umbrella.

When questioned, the boy revealed he had been slashed in face by another youth a week earlier. The blade narrowly missed his eye.

He is one of hundreds of youngsters across Britain whose brush with knife crime is not recorded in official statistics.

It is one of the errors highlighted by the Policy Exchange in the way knife crime figures are collated.

Under 16s are not included in the British Crime Survey but the latest hospital admission figures show the number of children under the age of 16 being treated for knife wounds has increased by 62% in the last five years.

The Royal London Hospital has been collating its own figures on patients treated by their trauma unit for serious and potentially serious knife wounds.

Consultant trauma vascular surgeon Mike Walsh said: "Our experience here is that the number of people suffering knife injuries is increasing year-on-year.

"If we took the figures for 2007, we had a total of 185 injuries in the year, so far in the first half of this year we've had 140."




Can anyone find a reliable source that actually demonstrates an increase in knife crime?

I can understand why some people would believe this to be a good idea but i think it's totally unrealistic.
The armed forces are professional organisations with all the soldiers/sailors/airmen choosing to join and the majority taking great pride in their duties.
It is not upto the armed forces to deal with yob culture, i personally think they have more than enough on their plate at the moment.

Come on Pete it says it right there. Police officers say it is so it must be true

I've no idea how individual officers can tewll if its gone up or down, especially with all that paper work they're sorting out. I think its probably becoming more prevelant in some areas but dropping off in others.

In any case i think if the police start dealing out proper punishments for carrying a knife it can only be a good thing.

I got called up for jury duty a few weeks ago.
Repeat offender in question had gone into a bookies at closing up time and nicked £270 off the counter while they were cashing up.

So a judge on £150.000+, two lawyers on £50,000, a police officer on £30,000+, two clerks of court on £30,000+, two prison oficers on £15,000+ and 60 potential jurors all claimimg expenses.
All to decide said individual, hotel accomodation for the next twelve months would be paid for by the tax payer.

Bring back the Birch!
It's cheap and you only have to do it once!

The problem is the bill of human rights.. you cant be nasty to anyone.. I think we need to change the rules just slightly.. so that if you break the law, you forfeit your human rights.. then you could bring a law that says if you are caught carrying a knife you should be taken straight to the police station and birched, there and then. No ifs, no ands, no buts.. knife crime would drop like a stone.. until they found something else...

I think that the fact the Knife crime is happening is enough to know its a problem regardless if its going 'Up or down'


Instead of puttting them in the army they should extend the school leave time to 18 possibly 20 because these days its around those ages that you start thinking a bit about what you wanna do with your life. Better education from a young age will tackle this knife problem as its kids raising kids and not learning the psychological skills to deal with problems.

The result of kids bringing up kids is mayhem and will take a good number of generations to fix if we was to change now....