#droptheknife

Sit-Down and Drop the Knife to Save a Life. "In my experience, I found that sometimes in order to know where we are heading we first need to know where we have been. History not only helps to provide those answers, but it can also with a little outside the box thinking provide us with answers to some of today's problems."

Most of my time is taken up campaigning for criminal justice reform, especially within our prisons. Rather than tell people what to think, I try to influence howthey think. I do this by sharing my experiences and perspective from both the negative and positive aspects of my life.  However, in my spare time, I research and write about organised crime (without glorifying it) mainly from an…

In the last couple of months there have been a number of incidents of stabbing and knife crime across the borough. Thankfully, none of these have resulted in a fatality.

While the number of knife crime incidents in Lambeth has actually fallen over the last twelve months, this is a problem that still blights too many of our communities and we wanted to reassure residents that our Cabinet lead Cllr M. Seedat and officers have been working closely with the police and a number of measures have been taken. These include;

Extra officers at schools Extra patrolling officers in hot spot areas Meetings with head teachers, facilitated by Lambeth Council Dispersal zones implemented at key schools Working with key community contacts to try to dissuade young people from participating in further altercations Intelligence-led use of stop and search to recover knives and other weapons Requested additional police resources to provide a deterrent and reassurance

With regards to the schools in the Norwood area, Lambeth has been working with the schools affected and there has already been meetings between the heads, council and police which has led to the simmering down of tensions. These initial meetings, plus several others between council officers, police, and councillors will aim to set out some longer term partnership work with the GLA, the Young Lambeth Coop, grassroots organisations and the police.