Knife seizures: 'How do you get through to those offenders?'

IT is impossible to avoid having mixed feelings about the rising number of knives being seized by police in Edinburgh.

The increase of more than a quarter over five years is undoubtedly evidence of an increased police focus on the problem.

While officers will inevitably find illegal knives as they investigate other crimes, many more offenders are caught thanks to the kind of on-the-spot searches increasingly staged outside night clubs and on buses in the city.

This increased police attention, coupled with an apparent growing willingness in the courts to deal more strictly with offenders, is welcome evidence of a concerted effort to take over-due action.

More than three-quarters of those caught with knives are now being sent to prison, to serve an average sentence of almost a year, the Solicitor General for Scotland announced yesterday. While this may not go far enough in many people's minds, it is a step in the right direction.

Yet, despite these encouraging signs, the sheer number of knives being carried with dubious intentions on the city's streets can only be troubling.

Of course, Edinburgh does not have the same level of problems that exist in many other British cities.

But when police are confiscating 261 knives in a year then it is safe to assume that many more are being carried undetected.

The seizure levels underline existing police concerns about a growing willingness among young men in the city to carry blades, either as status symbols or to protect themselves because they know others are similarly armed.

The fact the Scottish Parliament doubled the maximum jail sentence for carrying knives to four years in 2006 has not yet shown any significant impact and there is emerging evidence of a hard core of offenders who are not put off by the threat of tougher prison sentences and increased police detection.

One in five people convicted of carrying a knife or offensive weapon in Edinburgh has previously been charged for a similar offence, according to figures released last month.

That is the most worrying part of the knife crime conundrum: how do you get through to those offenders – mainly young men – who do not react to the threat of arrest and imprisonment?

There are reasons for guarded optimism that serious action is being taken against knife crime, but there is certainly no room for complacency.