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England's knife crime rise + LGBT asylum claims rejected (UK) + Universal credit woes

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England's rise in knife crime: Austerity & county lines
https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/why-eng...rime/90810

EXCERPT: . . . Cuts of about 20 percent in police budgets have led to a loss of nearly 20,000 officers across the country in the past seven years. Javid himself has admitted that boosting police numbers is an “important part of the solution” in tackling rising crime. While the police workforce has fallen, so too has police activity: the number of arrests made in England and Wales has halved in the past decade.

Peter Neyroud, former chief constable of Thames Valley police and now a criminology lecturer at Cambridge University, is clear about why violence is rising. “What you’re seeing here is the effects of austerity — the chickens are coming home to roost,” he says. “There have been cuts in police, as well as all the protective interventions … early years funding, social support for teenagers, help for those with special educational needs.”

Government spending on youth services — such as clubs and after-school facilities — has dropped by a third [...] in the past three years [...] A $6.5 million fund announced by ministers last month to help support children thought to be at most risk from knife crime and gang culture may well help, but does not come close to matching the level of the shortfall.

Rick Muir, director of the police foundation think-tank, says [...] that cuts “might have limited alternative provision which could have helped them on to a different path.” But he believes the bigger problem is the evolution of a drug supply operation known as “county lines,” in which youngsters are coerced into acting as couriers to take heroin and crack cocaine from major cities to provincial areas.

The statistics suggest this has contributed to the increase in violence: the proportion of murders in which the victim or suspect was known to be using or dealing drugs increased from 50 percent to 75 percent during the past two years, according to the Home Office. But managing the county lines issue requires a joined-up police response, and this is also being hit by a loss of funding....

MORE: https://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/why-eng...rime/90810



Number of LGBT+ asylum claims rejected by Home Office soars, figures show
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho...58951.html

EXCERPT: The proportion asylum claims from members of the LGBT+ community that have been rejected by the Home Office has surged in recent years, according to government data. In total, 78 per cent of asylum claims that included a reference to sexual orientation were refused last year, or a total of 1,464 people. This was a 52 per cent rise on 2015's figures when 61 per cent or 964 similar claims were rejected.

Campaigners said the figures were “deeply worrying” and claimed the Home Office had “set the bar too high” for people seeking protection. Many are left with no option but to return to countries where they could face prison, violence, or death, they added.

The data, which the government only started publishing last year, shows that of the 5,316 asylum applications made on the grounds of sexual orientation over the three year period, 3,776 were refused. Of the 2,908 claimants who appealed their negative decisions over that time, more than two thirds had their rejections overturned, the figures show....

MORE: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho...58951.html



Despite warning after warning, the universal credit rollout continues
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho...59561.html

EXCERPT: . . . despite the repeated warnings from charities, academics, and now councils, the rollout looks set to continue. [...] This tactic of jumping to defend universal credit has become a common operation for DWP ministers and press officers. The reform was introduced in 2013 with the intention of bringing “fairness and simplicity” to Britain’s social security system, by rolling six major working-age benefits into one payment. The department continues to insist that the new benefit is helping people to get into work faster and stay in work longer than the system it is replacing.

The reality is that the flagship welfare reform has left many claimants worse off than they were under legacy benefits. Recent data showed that council tenants on the new benefit owed six times as much rent as those using the old system, with evictions in a county where universal credit was in place up by 55 per cent compared to the same time last year....

MORE: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho...59561.html
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