Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (4)

Responding to my follow up e-mail to members of the Community Safety Scrutiny Committee, its chair, Cllr. Masood Ahmad states as follows:

‘Just to confirm, the Scrutiny Committee for Communities has not received any data relating to Sanction Detection Rates during the year. However, I would like to reassure you that we looked at a range of performance indicators relating to community safety, which include data on the total number of recorded crimes, the number of “MOPAC 7” offences, and the number of re-offences by the gang cohort being targeted by the Gangs Programme. We also looked at other data relating to violent crime as part of our inquiry into the gang prevention programme, which included a specific session on weapons. I am sure that the SDRs is something that the Scrutiny Committee for Communities will want to look at during the year ahead alongside knife crime. I have already spoken with officers about whether SDRs could be included in the performance data the committee receives so that it can be tracked more closely’.

It is a victory of sorts that in future the Community Safety Scrutiny Committee may look at Sanction Detection Rates, but little short of astonishing, given the context of rising knife violence, that Cllr. Ahmad openly admits they have not done so already.

After all what is the point of a Scrutiny Committee that does not scrutinise?

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Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (1)

Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (2)

Knife crime in Waltham Forest: a nasty little scandal (3)

The LBWF Gang Prevention Programme: yet another missed opportunity