Knife Crime emergency in Tower Hamlets

We the undersigned are very concerned about the incidence of knife crime in Tower Hamlets and in particular recent incidents – such as the fatal stabbing on East Ferry Road, E14. These incidents cause members of the public to feel our streets are not safe, and they blight the lives of our young people too. The reduction in police budgets and closure of local police stations – such as the police station in Manchester Road, E14 – is harming efforts to deal with this emergency. We call on John Biggs, Executive Mayor of Tower Hamlets, to devise an urgent strategy to deal with the high level of knife crime in the borough – and begin work straight away. The Strategy should be presented to the Cabinet on 27th October and then to the Council on 17th November. The Strategy should include the following steps.

The Executive Mayor should approach the borough’s MPs and the councillors in the Conservative Group and ask them to work with him to make representations to the Government for the Council to receive emergency funding to tackle knife crime in Tower Hamlets. The Executive Mayor should ask Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, and London City & East GLA Member Unmesh Desai to find emergency funding to tackle knife crime in Tower Hamlets.The Strategy should secure the re-opening of the Manchester Road police station, the only police station on the Isle of Dogs which can focus on bringing down the rate of crime, especially knife crime. The Strategy should restore THEOs and reinvest in extra police officers so there is a constant and visible presence to deter crime as well as respond to it quickly. A great deal of knife crime is related to the sale of drugs market: this needs to be disrupted, using a mix of enforcement and education.

The Strategy should re-establish a comprehensive youth service on the Isle of Dogs – after years of minimal provision – which can focus on bringing down the rate of crime, especially knife crime. The new youth service has to re-open youth centres and invest in trained outreach workers who will target young people at risk of offending and substance abuse. It must provide specialist drug and alcohol support for addicts and their families, which appropriate services for BAME addicts and families.

The Strategy must tackle organised crime and disorder by re-investing in a “Gangbuster Unit” like the one established by the previous Mayor. It must combat drug dealing by substituting the current strategy with ambitious targets such as “arrest a dealer a day”.