Results tagged “gangs” from Birmingham Post - News Blog

You can prove anything with statistics. 58 per cent of people know that.

So perhaps it wouldn't be right to read too much into the Birmingham Post's timeline of knife and gun killings in the region over the past year.

But on the other hand, what else is there to go on? And if it suggests anything it's this: gang crime is more of a problem than many people might think in this city.

The publication of quarterly police recorded crime figures in January highlighted a general fall in crime, with a drop of some of 9% in overall recorded crime in the period concerned. While crime figures are notoriously unreliable, and should always be read with caution these seemed initially to be showing something positive. Yet these statistics were blemished by a 4% rise in gun crime and a 21% rise in drug offences.

Yesterday we heared that police investigating the murder of Rhys Jones had made a number of arrests. His is but one death in a series of youth deaths and injury's linked to firearms in recent months, which in turn, are often linked directly or indirectly to the drugs trade. Yet the headline grabbing stories of murder and violence are but a tip of an iceberg when it contrasted to the unreported crime involving weapons, and increasingly guns. Last year doctors at Birmingham's City Hospital talked in the pages of the Birmingham Post about the number of cases of violent injury they were treating, but which never make it into crime statistics.

So how do we deal with the problem of carrying weapons? Well for one, we could examine where the firearms come from, and try to prevent young men getting them.