From Derek Bernard.
JERSEY’S most precious asset is its self-governing independence.

This provides us with the priceless freedom not to copy fashionable but counter-productive UK laws.

It is, therefore, regrettable to read in the JEP that to discourage knife crime, our Home Affairs are, once again, proposing to follow the UK’s Home Office – an organisation that, famously, is ‘not fit for function’, according to a recent Home Secretary.

Sadly, this media and government fixation with knives reflects the widespread but irrational fantasy that violent crime is caused by inanimate objects rather than people.

The terms ‘knife crime’ and ‘gun crime’ merely deflect attention away from the fact that violent people commit violent crimes. The crimes do not result from the presence of any particular object. The adoption of ‘ban it’ thinking in government has led us down this blind alley. We will start to remedy this only when we realise that this is entirely a people problem.

For many decades Boy Scouts were required to wear a large sheath-knife as part of their uniform. It did not encourage them to misuse them. On the contrary, the entire ethos was based on personal responsibility.

Banning more knives and increasing penalties for simple possession can be guaranteed to produce perverse results – more people will get arrested, convicted and punished, perhaps jailed, without doing anything anti-social, or intending to do anything anti-social.

Is there any evidence that banning any object ever produces social benefits? If so, let us see it. There is evidence that robbers with ‘blunt instruments’ injure a higher proportion of their victims than robbers with guns or knives. So, should we ban hammers? If not, why not?

Changing attitudes to criminal violence is a complex process that requires commitment to encouraging personal responsibility for one’s actions from the cradle to the grave. Sadly, it has little appeal as a quick-fix solution, which is wh at politicians are under pressure to produce.
Châlet Abaco,
Green Road,
St Clement.