Shaun Bailey: Ceasefire scheme trialled in US can halt knife deaths

A US-style anti-gangs programme to tackle London’s violent crime epidemic was proposed today by the Tory mayoral candidate.

Shaun Bailey vowed to implement “Operation London Ceasefire” on his first day in office to “halt” violent crime and knife deaths in the capital.

The initiative, dubbed US Operation Ceasefire, was first trialled in Boston in 1996 to tackle youth gun violence.

It targeted “hotspot” areas, jailed “chronic” offenders and used “call-ins” — events at which criminals on parole meet with former gang members, community leaders and police to be warned away from continuing a life of crime.

Within two years in Boston, youth homicides fell from about 44 annually to 10, leading the programme to be described as the “Boston miracle”. It was later abandoned but has been trialled in more than 30 US cities.

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A similar initiative, Shield, was trialled in Lambeth, Westminster and Haringey in 2015/16 in the last year of Boris Johnson’s mayoralty. There were 300 arrests and 115 individuals were charged with at least one offence.

But stakeholders questioned whether the US approach was suitable in London and said there was “no clear indication” that it had reduced violent offending.

Mr Bailey, a former youth worker, said he would divert “a large proportion” of City Hall’s £300 million adult education budget to move gang members away from criminal activities and into work.

He would use police and social workers to create “safer street zones” and personally host “call-ins”, telling gang members “that this nonsense on our streets has to stop”.

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Mr Bailey, in a speech at The Centre for Social Justice, was expected to call for “more police and more police activity to stop the bleeding”.

In a rare criticism of the Government, he was due to say that it “went too far” in cutting services that support troubled teenagers.

Glasgow was the first UK city to adopt the US model, establishing a violence reduction unit (VRU). Mayor Sadiq Khan set up a VRU in London last year in a bid to replicate Scotland’s success.

There are an estimated 250 gangs in London who are responsible for up to half of knife crimes and 60 per cent of shootings.

Mr Bailey declined to reveal which boroughs would be targeted or how many police would be involved.

He said the crackdown “will just keep going until the police say to me they have got it down to small enough numbers to think about different types of intervention”.

Asked whether the Mayor was to blame for the violent crime epidemic, Mr Bailey said: “Sadiq Khan is not out there causing crime but what he has done is avoid responsibility for it.”

A spokesman for Mr Khan said: "London is already doing or has previously tried the measures Shaun Bailey has suggested today.

"Shaun Bailey was the Tory youth and crime adviser in Downing Street when the Tories cut £1bn from the Met Police and millions more from youth services, mental health services and schools.

"And today we have learned that Bailey thinks that more police officers are ‘absolutely useless’ at deterring crime.

"He is simply not fit to keep Londoners safe."

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