Knife Crime Action Plan

Conservatives have a comprehensive plan to cut down on the incidence of knife crime and to deal severely with those who commit these kinds of crime. It consists of long-term measures to deal with the causes of crime – including family breakdown, poor education and a culture of indiscipline – tough policing to catch

those who carry and use knives, robust sentencing for those committing knife crimes, and a system for rehabilitating young offenders to stop them committing knife and other crimes in the future.

We need to send out a clear and unequivocal message that knife crime is unacceptable, and that carrying a knife will lead to serious punishment.

We need to make families stronger so they can provide the stable upbringing that young people need to help them avoid slipping into a life of crime, so we will:

• End the couple penalty in the benefits system so that families are no longer incentivised to live apart.

• Introduce a new universal health visiting service to help parents cope with the stresses of raising a young family – a time when many families break up.

• Put extra revenues raised from green taxes into a Family Fund, all the proceeds of which will go to lowering taxes for families.

• Include relationship education within the school curriculum so young people learn about the importance of keeping relationships together.

Our schools must play a part. We need much tougher rules on behaviour so that headteachers can instill a culture of discipline within their schools, and more good schools in our most deprived communities so that young people have the education they need to succeed away from crime, so we will:

• Ensure headteachers have the automatic right to exclude pupils without the right of appeal to an independent local authority panel.

• Enable schools to make behaviour contracts, which specify the expected behaviour of a pupil in school, legally enforceable as a condition of admission.

• Provide over 220,000 new places in good local schools in our most deprived communities.

• Allow voluntary groups, charities, co-operatives and parents groups to set up new schools within the state sector, funded by the taxpayer.

It is essential that we encourage young people away from a life of crime by helping them off welfare and into work, so we will:

• Ensure every out of work benefit claimant capable of doing so will be expected to look for work or prepare for work.

• Insist that unemployed young people who don't find a job within three months will be expected to take part in an intensive programme of work-related activity. If they spend twelve months out of work, they will then be moved onto a full-time community work programme lasting a further year.

• Threaten people who refuse to accept reasonable job offers or who refuse to participate in back to work or community activities with the loss of their out of work benefits.

Young people need a National Citizens Service that teaches them the right values, helps them develop as individuals lets them put something back into society, so we will:

• Introduce a universal 6 week programme for all 16 years olds who want a place. The programme will involve three main elements – community service, a residential course and a challenging

mission – to help develop young people and give them the confidence and skills to contribute to society.

Police officers should spend more time on the streets preventing crime and catching criminals, so we will:

• Cut police bureaucracy that keeps police behind desks rather than out on the beat – where they want to be and where the public want them to be.

• Abolish the ‘stop’ form – a foot long piece of paper which police officers currently have to fill in every time they want to stop someone.

• Change the rules on ‘stop and search’ to make it easier for police officers to stop suspects and search them for knifes and other weapons.

• Roll out the use of mobile knife scanners on the streets and on public transport – as Mayor Boris Johnson is doing in London.

We need to get much tougher when sentencing young people caught carrying knives or who commit other knife crimes. The current system lets people off too lightly, so we will:

• Ensure that anyone carrying a knife without a reasonable excuse should expect to be prosecuted –

currently more than a third of offenders caught carrying knives have been let off with a caution or final warning.

• Make it clear that anyone convicted of carrying a knife should expect to receive a custodial sentence – the presumption should be that offenders will be sent to jail. The minimum sentence

should be a tough community penalty with the offender working in high visibility uniform – not a fine or a caution.

• Call on the Sentencing Guidelines Council to withdraw its new guidelines, due to come into force next month, which allow offenders carrying a knife to only receive a fine.

If convicted and sent to prison, we need to make sure that there are enough custodial places for offenders and that they receive proper education and rehabilitation when imprisoned, so we will:

• Increase the number of places available in custodial institutions by redeveloping the existing estate.

• Reform prisons and Young Offender Institutions so that they reduce re-offending by make

governors accountable for re-offending rates, paying them by results if ex-offenders do not commit further crimes.

• Engage the voluntary and private sector in drugs and education programmes to help young offenders go straight.

• Support young offenders on their release with mentoring and work programmes.