I confess that I am not a lawyer, but I think that it would be hard to make a defence—those who are lawyers may correct me—of generally being scared of being attacked over a long time period, given that people are not carrying a knife because they expect to be attacked on a particular occasion and in a particular place. That is the problem. These people are scared. They are carrying a knife because of the risk that somebody will attack them, not because they ever intend to use it or hope to use it. I recognise that the defence would apply if someone grabbed a knife to defend themselves from an attack, but it would not apply in this case.
The Home Affairs Committee carried out a detailed report into this subject. Incidentally, its findings were unanimous. Earlier, the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said from a sedentary position that the Committee had a left-wing majority. It was a unanimous report, and I am not sure whether we are seeing a clear majority on the left at the moment. The Committee concluded that
“evidence suggests that the prospect of a custodial sentence may not deter young people from carrying knives. Many young people do not think about the consequences of their actions, and for a small minority who feel at risk of violence, the prospect of jail seems preferable to the dangers of being caught without a weapon for protection.”
It is that issue that we need to think further about. None of us is happy that that is the way things are, and that people are concerned to that extent, but that is the situation that we face.
The Select Committee took lots of evidence from young people who have been involved in knife crime. They said:
“It does not go through your mind at all about prison or whatever; it does not exist.”
There is lots of evidence to show that sentencing does not have that much effect. The 2001 Halliday report on sentencing found no evidence to suggest that there was a link between differences in sentence severity and deterrence effects. It concluded that
“it is the prospect of getting caught that has deterrence value”
rather than the nature of the sentence itself.
The Centre for Social Justice said:
“An increase in the number of people imprisoned for knife possession does not warrant celebration, particularly when we know that the majority of young people carry knives out of fear and…custody exposes young people to more hardened criminals.”
That is another problem that was briefly touched on earlier. When young people have been led astray, and find themselves involved in gangs and knife crime, there are a number of paths that they can take. If they manage to avoid death or injury—unfortunately that is not the case for all of them—they might clean up their act, or they might settle into a life of repeated criminality. We all hope that they will sort themselves out, but we know that prison sentences push people into repeat offending. Prison has its place, and there are strenuous efforts now to try to improve rehabilitation, but we still see high reoffending levels. We should be wary of increasing the damaging effect that prison has on people’s futures.
We should also be looking for unintended consequences on people’s behaviour—if they are listening to the message being sent out. People in gangs who have been charged once with possessing a knife will simply react—if they pay any attention at all, and that will depend on the quality of policing—by making another more junior, more vulnerable gang member carry a knife for them. That will seem like a sensible and rational response, if they are listening to the message that is being sent out. Under-16s will be put under intense pressure to do that for the obvious reason that they would not be caught by the new clause. That would put under-16s at greater risk by leading them further into gang behaviour. If the new clause is added to the Bill, I expect one of the unintended consequences to be an increase in those aged 15 and under carrying knives.