Sajid Javid to call for shift in mindset to tackle knife crime

The home secretary, Sajid Javid, is to call for a shift in the government’s mindset to deal with the “national emergency” of youth violence and bloodshed on Britain’s streets.

In his first major speech on crime, delivered as fellow cabinet ministers and Conservative backbenchers jockey for the party leadership, Javid will promise better policy coordination on the issue of knife attacks.

Javid has often been cited as being among the frontrunners to succeed Theresa May but in recent weeks his star has fallen. He has lagged behind more organised campaigns including that of Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, who, like Javid, aims to present himself as a Tory moderate who enthusiastically embraced Brexit.

MPs privately criticise Javid’s lack of vision for the party’s future, in contrast to his compelling backstory as the Rochdale-born son of Pakistani immigrants who rose to become home secretary.

However, MPs are believed to have been impressed by a private speech he gave in the Commons dining room describing how he overcame social barriers, not just to rise out of childhood poverty but to marry his wife and be selected as a Tory candidate.

Speaking on Monday, a year after the launch of the government’s serious violence strategy, Javid will say the issue must be treated like the “outbreak of some virulent disease” and that all parts of the government must work together to “ensure there is no let-up until the violence is eradicated”.

The “mindset of government needs to shift” to tackle violence among young people, Javid will argue, so that data is used more effectively to improve understanding of the causes of and pathways into crime.

Knife crime in England and Wales has been rising steadily since 2014. Last year there were 39,818 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument. The number of homicides committed by knife has jumped to the highest level since Home Office records began in 1946, with 285 killings in 2017-18.

Speaking to an audience of early intervention charities, senior police officers and youth workers, Javid will emphasise the need for a public health approach to tackling youth violence – a policy successfully adopted in Scotland.

Javid will acknowledge that crime is now at the forefront of the public’s mind, with a recent YouGov survey finding that it had overtaken health as an issue of major concern for the first time.

In his speech, Javid will endorse a public health approach that is about giving teachers and NHS staff “the confidence to report their concerns, safe in the knowledge that everyone will close ranks to protect that child”.

He will say: “Just as we can design products to prevent crime, we can also design policy to shape the lives of young people to prevent criminality. Changing the lives of young people will not be an easy task. Crime has a way of drawing in those who feel worthless. But when you belong to something greater than yourself, when you have something to lose, it’s not as easy to throw your life away.

“No future should be pre-determined by where you’re born or how you’re brought up. We cannot afford to leave anyone behind.”

In a separate policy proposal launched on Monday, a senior Metropolitan police detective and a Cambridge University academic have called for better use of knife-crime data to predict attacks.

Information from a 12-month period could be used to help forecast the London neighbourhoods most likely to see a fatal stabbing in the following year, according to research in the Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing.

The number of assaults resulting in knife injuries over one year correlates with an increased risk of deadly knife crime in the same small areas the next year, the study reports.

DCI John Massey, from the Met’s homicide command, trawled through thousands of knife crime records to pick out and “geo-code” incidents where people were stabbed and cut but survived during the 2016/17 year.

It is said to be the first dataset of non-fatal knife assault “hotspots” in the UK. Current crime statistics do not distinguish between incidents without injury – the displaying of knives during robberies, for example – and those where injuries have been caused by knives.

Of the 41 neighbourhoods that had six or more injuries from knife assaults in the first year, the study found, 15% went on to experience a homicide the following year.

The researchers argue that this reveals a large increase in homicide risk. The study’s co-author Prof Lawrence Sherman, of Cambridge University, said: “If assault data forecasts that a neighbourhood is more likely to experience knife homicide, police commanders might consider everything from closer monitoring of school exclusions to localised use of stop-and-search.”