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POUNDLAND has banned the sale of kitchen knives across the UK in response to the crime wave hitting the country.
The retailer stopped selling the weapons in London last week and is set to extend the ban to all 850 of its UK and Ireland stores by the end of the year.
The move follows 35 people being fatally stabbed in London since the beginning of the year as violence in the capital spikes.
Austin Cook Poundland's retail director said: "We have committed to take knives out of all our stores, starting with London, which we have done with immediate effect a couple of weeks ago, and we will take them out of the rest of the country by October.
"Since I've come into my role we have had a lot of feedback from our store colleagues that we are retailing knives that can have the wrong ultimate purpose for them.
"We want to take them off our shelves and take them out of the hands of the wrong customers and, whilst there is a sales implication for us, it's much more important to us to protect both our colleagues and our customers from any risk.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6069878/poundland-stop-selling-knives-london-stabbings/
Story continues below:
Town-centre pound store prosecuted for knife sale
Management and training procedures at the town-centre branch of a national retail chain were questioned when the company was prosecuted for the sale of a knife to under-age customers.
Poundworld Retail Ltd appeared at Croydon Magistrates' Court on 16 May and was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay costs after being found guilty of selling a knife to a person under the age of 18. The total penalty, including victim surcharge, amounted to £8,520.
The court heard that, as part of a test-purchasing exercise conducted by the council's trading standards department, two 14-year-old volunteers went to the store's North End branch on 28 May 2015 and, after selecting a kitchen knife from a display, took it for payment to one of the tills.
The sales assistant, on only his second day at work in the store, failed to challenge the youngsters and the sale was completed.
http://news.croydon.gov.uk/town-centre-pound-store-prosecuted-for-knife-sale/
'You cannot be soft on this': Boris Johnson calls for stop and search increase to combat London knife crime surge
Boris Johnson has called for an increased use of stop and search powers to combat knife crime following a spate of fatal stabbings in London.
The Foreign Secretary warned against "going soft" as he insisted that Scotland Yard and Sadiq Khan "come down like a ton of bricks" on gang leaders.
His comments came after teenager Sami Sidhom, 18, was knifed to death on Monday night in the capital's third killing in two days.
Mr Johnson said when he was Mayor of London he adopted a dual approach that boosted stop and search incidents while mentoring young people to prevent them getting sucked into gang violence.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, he told current London mayor Sadiq Khan: "You cannot be soft on this."
London murder rate overtakes New York as knife crime rises
LONDON (Reuters) - London police investigated more murders than their New York counterparts did over the last two months, statistics show, as the British capital's mayor vowed to fight a "violent scourge" on the streets.
There were 15 murders in London in February against 14 in New York, according to London's Metropolitan Police Service and the New York Police Department. For March, 22 murders were investigated in London, with 21 reports in New York.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday May 01 2019, @01:17PM (46 children)
The last time there was a media panic about knife crime in London, someone did some careful research to demonstrate that when the actual incidence of knife crime is low, natural expected random variations will lead to 'spikes' that the media report on. I don't know if it is still true, but it taught me that the media will report 'spikes', but not equivalent drops due to natural variation. While knife crime is bad, I have a suspicion there are better things to be concentrating money and resources upon.
Punk Psychologist; Gobbing in the face of pseudoscience...: "Knife Crime" In The Media [blogspot.com]
Wayback Machine link to article referenced in the above article: Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (King's College, London): 'Knife Crime': A Review of Evidence and Policy [archive.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @01:24PM (41 children)
There is no such thing as dozens of people in a city randomly stabbing each other. It is happening for a reason. People need to stop calling everything random.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday May 01 2019, @01:51PM (8 children)
OK, so what is the model that allows you to predict when and where people will be stabbed? It would be very useful for the police to be able to use the predictive model to be on the scene to catch the perpetrators, or even prevent the crime. If you are unable to predict when and where stabbings will take place, how is that different from random?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @01:56PM
Yes, now you are getting it. Random just means *you* don't know why so you substitute a probabilistic model for the true process. There is nothing "natural" or "normal" about it. It is totally subjective.
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Wednesday May 01 2019, @05:36PM (5 children)
Easy Peasey. Where you see invaders you see crime, knife crime among it along with sexual assaults, muggings, etc. What is difficult is saying that in public and what is apparently impossible is making policy around such an obvious fact. It it will remain impossible until an impossible to predict in advance inflection point is hit, then it will either be impossible to do anything else or because it is too late and the final genocide is too far along to stop. One or the other, there isn't a third option likely to present itself, the current madness will ratchet up until it causes a horrible reactionary blowback or comes to its bloody conclusion.
(Score: 2, Troll) by edIII on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:45PM (3 children)
There's no invaders you stupid fucking nitwit. It's mentally and morally deficient hate filled pieces of shit like you that can see some women and children fleeing violence as "invaders". Likewise, some non-white immigrants that just want a good life with freedom, are not intrinsically invaders either. According to your warped logic, which completely ignores the actual numbers, all migrants are invaders. EXCEPT Norwegians right? Beautiful white people don't count right?
It would be funny if fuckwits like you weren't ruining America right now. You guys could see a dozen teenagers as an "invasion" into a mall that already has a thousand people. Likewise, 10k people on the border attempting to enter a country with 350 million people, without military arms, backup, or supply lines, isn't an invasion.
I would suggest you pick up a dictionary and educate yourself on what invaders actually were, and what invasions actually are. That would presume you could incorporate new information past your hate filters, or as you would understand it, liberal information is invading your brain.
Fucking racist dumbass.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:20PM (1 child)
My brother had a fruit farm near San Diego. Last year *some group of people* moved into the area from the south and started stealing his fruit and taking over the land. The authorities would do nothing, so he knocked down all the structures, destroyed the crops as much as possible, and abandoned it. Now he lives in his car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @10:46PM
It isn't funny, that is what this illegal immigration policy is doing. It is destroying lives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 07 2019, @09:41AM
What will you do when it is your daughter? Your wife? Your mother?
When your family can't go swimming at a public pool for fear or sexual harassment.
When it becomes normal, like it has been in the UK, for young girls to be groomed for sexual slavery.
What will you do when it is you they come for giving you the choice of joining their evil cult or dying.
These are the choices being faced by people today in countries across Europe.
Think carefully before replying. They will rape and kill men too.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 03 2019, @04:10AM
I was going to say you could probably predict it pretty well around Christian and Jewish holidays and institutions, but same principle. And same source.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:16PM
Apropos London, It's a model they can't use, as it profiles certain groups that they're not allowed to profile..
Ah, again, the application of the model they can't use would lead to the use the good old 'Sus laws' they can't use coz' 'profiling'..
In London, if it were truly random stabby-cuntery going on, then one would naturally expect the media to be reporting on a number of white-stabby-cunt-on-white-stabby-cunt crimes, asian-stabby-cunt-on-asian-stabby-cunt crimes, any_coloured_stabby-cunt-on-any_coloured_civilian crimes and various mixes of these...but no, all we're seeing is black-stabby-cunt-on-black-stabby-cunt related stuff, and we're not even supposed to say (or even think, lest we be profiling yet again) the two magic words 'gang related' here or even throw in an 'internecine' for good measure, as, naturally, all the reported victims were as pure as the driven fucking snow....
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:16PM (21 children)
I think it probably *is* random, e.g. people getting drunk and starting a fight.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:23PM (1 child)
Then knife crime would not be increasing. The only changing variable is Muslims.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:35PM
You forgot proletarianization....
Agh, but I guess now that the whole world has decided to turn their brains off and give in to bloodlust (caused by poverty from proletariani... anyway) we might as well just conclude that Mooooooooooooooslems cause proletarianization!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:27PM (14 children)
That isn't random.
(Score: 3, Funny) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:10PM (13 children)
Yes it is.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:38PM (12 children)
No, it most certainly is not.
(Score: 4, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:58PM (3 children)
Now listen, I came here for a good argument...
(Score: 4, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 01 2019, @05:05PM (2 children)
Oh sorry, this is Abuse. Argument is a few doors down. ... ... ... stupid git...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:34PM (1 child)
The police once tried to seize my Moose...
No, Realli! I was just valking it doon the street and the Bobby came and said, "Here, we'll have that Moose now....."
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @08:00PM
Well to be fair you must not have been carrying the proper Moose license.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:15PM (7 children)
[Draws knife] *YES it IS*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @05:37PM
[Draws tablet] *CHECKMATE*
Please don't move, it still takes a little while for the crowbars to reach the ground.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday May 01 2019, @06:30PM (5 children)
So now drawing a knife will result in banning pencils, pens, etc.
It's a sacrifice. But it will keep us safe.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:37PM (2 children)
Haven't you seen those BIC pen commercials where they shoot them into things and they still write. Must be a write wing thing.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:51PM (1 child)
LOL. In all seriousness, those will be the next to go. I remember getting into some wars with thick rubber bands, BIC pens, and paper clips. It stopped when I embedded a paper clip into some kids eye. Thankfully, it deflected and lodged into his eye instead of puncturing it.
Never underestimate the possibilities of "McGyvering" a weapon out of a BIC pen. For truly advanced weapon ideas from basic items, just visit your local prison.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday May 03 2019, @04:14AM
In grade school I made a mini bow from a plastic pen filler, a couple of straight pins, and a rubber band, and used a metal pen filler as my arrow. Imagine my surprise when I shot it across the room and my improvised arrow went right through the drywall and disappeared into the wall.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:48PM
[Draws middle finger] *GREAT THINKING!* Now kids will resort to drawing knives in the dirt with sticks. Then you'll tell us we'll have to ban trees because they make sticks. And then the children will draw with their fingers. What next? Remove the fingers?!?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:55PM
Banning pencils?, just wait 'till they see the pencil kill scene in John Wick: chapter 2..
(Score: 2) by schad on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:12PM (3 children)
That's not random. Are people getting drunk more often than before? Are they getting more drunk than they used to? Are fights more likely than usual to accompany drinking? All of those questions point to possible underlying causes which may in fact be quite serious.
Generally you don't want to treat the symptom unless you either can't figure out the disease or the disease is incurable.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:12PM (2 children)
I think GGGGP point was that there is no way to tell between a systematic variation (more people getting drunk) and a statistical variation (tonight the knife happened to end up a couple of cm closer to the heart).
Say the probability of a night out ending in a trip to the morgue is 1e-4, and there are 1e6 nights out per week in London. Then the number of trips to the morgue is distributed as a binomial distribution with n = 1e6 and p=1e-4. Now, we can test the confidence with which we can say in *this month* or *that month* that p has changed (or n has changed). Obviously my model is naive; I'm sure there are some social science types out there who do this for a living and will make a better job. But GGGP made the point that the statistics are not yet good enough to make a case that p or n has changed with any statistical significance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @05:20PM (1 child)
You use "binomial" to mean "random", I use "Poisson binomial", where p can change from day to day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_binomial_distribution [wikipedia.org]
"Random" just refers to your subjective choice of how to model things. It isn't something in the "real world".
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 01 2019, @05:56PM
> You use "binomial" to mean "random"
No, I mean binomially distributed, as opposed to distributed according to chi2 or normal or top hat or any other pdf.
> It isn't something in the "real world".
Fine, but there are many factors involved in number of people dying of knife crime that are unrelated to the price of beer. For example, whether the perp happened to be distracted by a low flying aircraft, whether the victim was wearing restrictive clothing that prevented him dodging. I call this "random", although I take your point that one might argue that the universe is deterministic in nature.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:23PM (7 children)
FTFY - cause I fail to see how "stabbing people" and "reason" can be rationally related.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:32PM (5 children)
You must lack the capacity for empathy then.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:35PM (4 children)
Explain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:41PM (3 children)
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and understand why they act the way they do. You apparently can't imagine any reason one person may stab another since you lack that ability.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:52PM (1 child)
Believe it or not, I can do this easily most of the time.
Though, ponder a bit on the difference between the motivation and rationality/reason for an action.
Also on the difference between understanding and accepting or approving something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by schad on Wednesday May 01 2019, @03:27PM
Not sure if you genuinely don't understand, or if you are just so deadpan in your pun delivery that I'm being whooshed.
In the event that it's the former, you and your parent are using different meanings of the word "reason." The one that your parent is using is the meaning that most native English speakers would use in this context. Using the word "reason" in the sense of intellect or logic is relatively uncommon in modern English except in specific technical contexts (e.g. philosophy).
To put it another way, it's perfectly correct to use "reason" as a synonym for "explanation" in this context, and it does not in any way imply that the reason is logical, rational, justified, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 01 2019, @05:40PM
No that would be sympathy. Empathy is *feeling* what the other person is, such as someone's pet just died and you also had a pet die recently so you empathize with what they're going through. Someone who never lost something important in their lives is more likely to be sympathetic, they understand the person is sad and why but they personally don't have the same feelings.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday May 01 2019, @04:57PM
It certainly *can* be for a reason. That you can't find out what the reason is is also possible. E.g. there was a period when gang violence was usually confined to members of gangs, but when they wanted to let people know they were very upset, they spread it around a bit.
Actually, that may still be true, though I doubt it. I think there's a lot less centralization of control these days, and a lot more clumsy criminals. This, however, could be an artifact of styles of reporting.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:46PM
Given that they are heavy drinkers, consumers of drugs and that they "accidentally" found antidepressants in tap water, knifing each other randomly is not so alien.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by RandomFactor on Wednesday May 01 2019, @09:16PM
Day 231 - The first halting opposition to my plan to take over the interwebs using statistics surfaces on a news site discussion board. Examples must be made.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday May 01 2019, @02:44PM (1 child)
The technical term is "regression to the mean". It applies to lots of things, e.g. the Sports Illustrated cover jinx, speed cameras reducing crashes in hot spots, and much more.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday May 01 2019, @05:35PM
You make a very good point, but that wasn't quite what I meant.
A spike in knife crime above the mean is reported in the media.
A drop in knife crime below the mean is not reported in the media. It isn't sensationalist enough.
In both case (a spike and a drop) you would, as you correctly point out, expect a regression to the mean - the in the reporting period after a spike, you would expect regression to the mean, i.e. a drop, without changing anything; and similarly after a drop below the mean, in the reporting period after the drop you would expect a regression to the mean, i.e. a rise, without changing anything.
Obviously, this being statistics, looking at individual events is a fool's game, and by saying expect I'm being slapdash with technical terms, but you probably know what I mean.
Regression to the mean explains a lot of things - including some aspects of CEO performance compared to their predecessors in a job.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 01 2019, @07:04PM (1 child)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday May 01 2019, @09:04PM
+1 Great Album - ELP FTW
--
Forget world peace. Visualize using your damned turn signal.