A GLASGOW anti-violence scheme has been adopted by London in a bid to tackle the wave of knife crime which has plagued the capital.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, yesterday announced plans for a violence reduction unit that treats violence as a public health issue.
It follows more than 100 murders in London so far this year, many knife related, with one third of victims aged between 16 and 24.
The strategy is based on the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit which was hailed as a major success.
New plans will include money for a unit to involve staff from the health service, police, schools and local government agencies to work together to tackle violent crime.
Mr Khan has also tasked a team to work out how the scheme can be upscaled to a city which has a population of nine million.
The Mayor said: “We have listened and researched the public health approaches in cities like Glasgow, where their own long-term approach over more than a decade has delivered large reductions in violence.
"The causes of violent crime are extremely complex, involving deep-seated societal problems like poverty, social alienation, mental ill-health and a lack of opportunity.
“I want to be honest with Londoners that the work of the violence reduction unit will not deliver results overnight. The causes of violent crime are many years in the making and the solutions will take time.
"That’s why our new approach is focusing over the long-term. This unit is not a substitute for the investment our public services need if London is to significantly cut levels of violent crime.”
The success of the Scottish unit saw the number of youngsters killed by knife crime fall from 40 between 2006-2011, to eight between 2011 and 2016.
The biggest success came in Glasgow where the figure for those periods fell from 15 to none.
Niven Rennie, the director of the Scottish violence reduction unit, said: “The SVRU started by treating violence as a disease which was infecting our communities.
"From teachers and social workers to doctors and dentists, police and government, we have all worked together to make Scotland safer. The job isn’t done and every single life lost is a tragedy, but we have come a long way from the days when the World Health Organization branded Scotland the most violent country in the developed world.”
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