Young People Back More Stop And Search Powers To Reduce Knife Crime
Young people backed the idea of giving police more stop and search powers to tackle knife crime in a heated debate at the BKYP public meeting.
Young people passionately debated both side of the arguement before a vote was narrowly won by those backing more powers for the police. Intoducing the case for more powers, Senior MYP Mohammed Ayaz said "It's not an invasion of privacy it's for your safety" adding "If you aren't carrying a knife you shouldn't have an issue with being searched."
Keighley MYP Daisy Dooks introduced the case against more powers, raising concerns about the implications for civil liberities and the possibility of racial profiling leading to young people becoming more isolated. She argued that the current policies of punishment over prevention was failing.
Senior MYP Ruckaiya Karim argued that the resources needed to increase to use of stop and search could be better spent elsewhere while Shipley MYP Jordan Moussavi said that even if only 7 out of 100 people stopped were found to be carrying a knife, it potentially meant 7 lives had been saved.
Bradford North MYP Tahirah Sherriff said stop and search would not work as knives were too easy to get hold of and if a young person wanted to carry a knife they could easily get hold of another one.
Tayyab Razak, MYP for Bradford West said he would have no problem being searched and said he would feel more embarrassed to be caught carrying a knife than to be searched in the street.
The final vote was very close with only a few votes in it but the majority of young people backed giving the Police more powers to stop and search people to attempt to reduce knife crime.
