Minutes:
The Borough Commander, Simon Messinger, introduced himself to the committee. His early priorities were knife crime, protecting vulnerable people, domestic assault and following up some cases of wanted people
In response to questions from the committee he said that
Crime hot spots in the borough have not changed - they remain Elephant & Castle, Walworth Rd, Camberwell and Peckham. Moped crime has increased. There has been a reduction in discharge of firearms. Knife crime occurs in episodes which are driven by allegiances between gang members and often instigated by insults on social media.
Community effort is needed to tackle knife crime. Allegiances between people can mean they are not willing to speak to the police. He has been meeting with headteachers and gathering data from NHS to capture more intelligence where for example a victim of knife crime might not call the police but would call an ambulance. Joint effort is required across the police, the local authority and community and voluntary groups.
RESOLVED:
1. The sub-committee recommends the Community Safety team requests that the Local Authority Liaison Officer reports serious incidents and success stories to a wider circle of people than ward councillors, and that ward councillors in turn to pass information to tenant groups.
2. That the sub-committee discuss with the Cabinet member for Communities and Safety the need for significant youth involvement to be introduced to the Youth Council and request that they consider a new structure to introduce young people from the following groups Churches, Mosques and Southwark citizens to its membership.
3. The Sub-Committee recommends a new name be considered for the “Anti Knife Crime Forum” and suggests the “Youth Safety Forum”.