John Carnochan and Karyn McCluskey set up the internationally renowned VRU in 2005 to tackle Glasgow’s deeply rooted knife culture. Significantly, the VRU treated violence as a public health crisis, an approach credited with dramatically reducing deaths in Scotland, which little more than a decade ago had the second highest murder rate in western Europe. The style of policing was critical to success in London, said McCluskey. It offered young men a way out through education, training and mentoring – importantly, delivered by someone with similar experience of street violence. But it also helps to be part of that bigger family, and inform Police Scotland practices.”

Source: The Guardian April 06, 2018 04:52 UTC