Knife crime offenders to be tagged on release in pilot scheme

Pic: Surrey County Council

Knife crime offenders will be ‘tagged’ after release from prison in a pilot scheme across four London boroughs.

Announcing the plan, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, said 100 offenders over the age of 18, who are thought likely to reoffend will be fitted with a GPS tracker.  This will trace all of their movements.

The one-year pilot will be launched on February 18 and will cover Lewisham, Lambeth, Croydon and Southwark.

The Mayor said: “In London, we are leading the way on pioneering enforcement work to tackle violent crime. The Met Police have confirmed that we are starting to see the results of that work, with a reduction in the number of knife injuries in under 25-year-olds during 2018”.

Pic: Mary R Smith

He continued: “Violent crime in London is unacceptably high, and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and I are doing everything in our power to crack down on violence and knife crime.

British technology group, Buddi are contracted to The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and will be managing all of the data collected through the year. Police and probation services will also have full access to the information.

In November, the Mayor also admitted that it could take up to a decade to solve the knife crime problem.

Pic: Wikipedia Commons

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