Danny Kruger has written a defence of the infamous speech (read/watch) about youth crime that he wrote for David Cameron. A few paragraphs doesn't do his argument justice but this is the essence of it:
"This speech has gone down in Tory lore as a terrible blunder, but I am still rather proud of it. The nub of it was, that while we should certainly punish people who cross the line into criminality, on this side of the line we need ‘to show a lot more love’.
Love is a neglected crime-fighting device. But the need for it is powerfully proved in Felicity de Zulueta’s important book From Pain to Violence: The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness. She argues that violence and hatred are not motive forces of their own: they are the terrible expression of wrecked relationships, of thwarted love."
He's completely right. The 'tough love' of punishment can be a blunt tool without the encouragement that 'soft love' brings, and saying so doesn't mean you're some kind of detached-from-reality, soft-on-crime, "Hello Sun" morally relativist liberal (ask Lord Tebbit). David Davis' line that "I also would like to hug a hoodie but for rather longer and harder" was guaranteed to go down well at Party Conference, but it's not the solution.
I'm a bit of a righteous have-a-go-hero when it comes to dealing with things like "the spit-filled mouth of the little rat-faced boy who punched me" that Danny described. But dealing with youths at that stage of waywardness is merely using a reactive stick, when a proactive carrot earlier on could have done the trick.
That's not to say there's no hope at that stage. There's always a hope if people are given a second chance. I happen to be going to a play on knife crime tonight (wearing one of my hoodies, in fact) performed by ex-cons and organised by the small charity Danny left David Cameron's office to run with his wife. It works as much by forming relationships between the charity workers and the convicts as by them applying themselves to the discipline of acting. Danny certainly practices what he preaches.
