Recent news that London’s murder rate has overtaken New York’s has caused much soul searching in the UK, and there seems to be plenty of blame to go around. When two 17-year-olds stab an 18-year-old to death on the streets of London, who is responsible?
Home Secretary Amber Rudd this week announced her Serious Violence Strategy where she identified the illegal drugs market as the ‘biggest driver’ behind the rise in violent crime. True, the war on drugs is a dismal failure and decriminalizing drugs would of course be a giant step towards a more peaceful society. But the report unsurprisingly doesn’t advocate any relaxation of drugs legislation, only more money to obtain ‘vital intelligence’ on illegal drugs markets. A missed chance to address the insanely counterproductive drugs war.
But the discussion over who is to blame for the increase in violence is multi-faceted. According to the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, it’s the government who bear responsibility. They are cutting £700 million from the national policing budget – in London the number of police officers are set to drop below 30,000 from 32,000 under the previous mayor Boris Johnson. According to critics of the Mayor, including Prime Minister Theresa May, he himself is responsible – the Mayor’s office is after all responsible for the Metropolitan Police. The Home Secretary has blamed social media – violent videos found online incite violence, she claims. She is supported in this view by Cressida Dick, London’s police chief. Labour and many youth workers claim there is a direct link between the rise in violent crime and ‘decimated’ youth services – hence, the government is responsible for inadequate social spending. The restrictions on stop-and-search, prompted by political correctness, has also been blamed. Patrick Boyce, whose son was left in a vegetative state after a being stabbed in 2016, blames dysfunctional families, often single mothers. He even says that ‘it’s good that cuts mean community centres are closing, otherwise community centres would have more murders.’
Whatever scapegoat ‘experts’ and politicians picked out, the fact is that the youth of today are increasingly inclined to engage in gang culture, petty crime and extreme violence. In the end, this comes down to instilled values and moral compass – in a word, upbringing.
Historically, the so-called nuclear family (two parents and their children) played a critical role in the raising of children. Research suggests children who grow up in intact married homes have less emotional problems, are less violent, use less drugs and perform better in school than children raised by single parents. US research suggests children from single-parent homes are twice as likely to be arrested. Children of single parents are unsurprisingly twice as likely to be living in relative poverty.
According to the Centre for Social Justice, more than 80% of Brits agree that ‘stronger families and improved parenting are important in addressing Britain’s social problems’. This makes sense. Good parents instil work ethics, aspiration and morals – it is first and foremost your parents who teach you not to steal and it is them who are first in line to intervene if a young man starts carrying a zombie knife to school. It is also parents who have the widest arsenal of sanctions available – until laws are broken and the police gets involved.
But the pre-eminence of nuclear family is under threat. In the UK, the proportion of family households with a single parent has remained stable around one-in-four for the last decade, but in absolute numbers have been increasing at a rate of around 20,000 households every year. The proportion rose significantly in the preceding decades. Of single parents, over half had their children outside wedlock. But by the time they reach their mid-teens, almost half of all children are no longer living with both their parents.
These developments could have been foreseen. Since the 2nd World War, the welfare state has slowly ‘crowded out’ the traditional family unit. The nanny state has eroded the sense of personal responsibility and created a dependency culture where the welfare office and social workers replace the family. Benefits aimed at single parents subsidize single parenthood, which unsurprisingly has increased. Social services offer an alternative to parenting. State pensions erode the value of maintaining close relationships with your children as they grow up. The state effectively offers to be provider in childhood, adult life and old age. It has removed the need for a coherent family unit and at the same time removed the moral guidance, emotional support and sense of responsibility and accountability that is central to family life. Should we be surprised when children who are growing up with single mothers on sink council estates surrounded by unemployment and seemingly perpetual dependency, with no father figure and little encouragement to break a mould of multi-generational welfare reliance, develop a distorted moral compass?
Yet it is only by changing the moral fabric of society that we address the root cause of youth violence. The welfare state has incentivised the very behaviours that have caused the moral decay: single parenthood, clientelism, unemployment, irresponsibility and dependency. The antidote is freedom, but that means rolling back the welfare state. With freedom comes responsibility. In fact, freedom breeds responsibility. And if you live in North London, taking your knife out of your school bag is the responsible thing to do.