Notting Hill Carnival should become ticketed event to prevent violent crime, says former Met detective

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/notting-hill-carnival-ticketed-event-prevent-violent-crime-met-police/

Posted by Anony_mouse202

12 Comments

  1. This is great in theory but flawed, anyone who’s been knows this is geographically borderline impossible to implement without a huge amount of cost and manpower and logistical workarounds.

    Plenty of the people committing crime at the festival will actually be living within the carnival zones anyway as it’s over a *vast* bit of the city. There isn’t just one easy way to put a massive fence or barriers around it like there would be at one of the gigs at Hyde Park, for instance.

  2. Some key Notting Hill Carnival crime data:

    2024: 2 murders and 8 stabbings

    2023: 10 stabbings

    2022: 1 murder and 7 stabbings

    2019: 18 stabbings

    2018: 7 stabbings

    2017: 12 stabbings

    Meanwhile Pride has had 0 murders or stabbings for the same time period.

  3. Just build a massive wall around the entirety of London at this point. It’s a shame it isn’t a coastal city or we could break off the connection to land and float it out to sea. It’s a write-off.

  4. EwokSuperPig___ on

    If it’s a ticketed event in Hyde Park then it’s not Carnival. That’s missing the basis of the celebration. Carnival is representive of a larger knife crime issue in the UK and London especially. You deal with knife crime and watch drop at Carnival

  5. So completely ruin the event and turn it into just another drab corporate soulless non-fixture in our quest to eliminate any and all risk?

    This is a shit idea, I give it 2 years in this country.

  6. This would ultimately make things worse as people will sneak in and cause chaos. This year, the Elizabeth line train I was on was cancelled due to trespassers at Ladbroke Grove Station. If you’ve already got behaviour like this when it’s a free event, imagine the lengths people will go through when they have to pay to attend.

  7. Monkeyboogaloo on

    One idea is move the sound systems to Hyde park and ticket it.

    Keep the carnival on its route.

    Or extend the area to include the scrubs and keep the same number of sound systems but further apart which reduces chance of crushes and people committing crime then hiding in the crowd.

    An obvious action is to screen for knives on all routes in although those intent on trouble could preplace weapons or carry ceramics.

    But carnival isn’t the problem.

    Knife crime is.

    Knife crime is complex and it isn’t just about tougher sentencing.

    Youth services have been decimated. So kids are not getting guidance.

    The Met has £1billion cut from it’s funding. In 2018 the government concluded cuts in police funding “may have encouraged” violent offenders and have “likely contributed” to a rise in serious violent crime. No shit sherlock.

    Glasgow slashed it’s knife crime by approaching it as a public health issue. Address the causes not just the symptoms. The outcome? A 69% drop in people carrying knives and between 2006 and 2011, 15 children and teenagers were killed with knives in Scotland’s largest city; between April 2011 and April 2016, none were killed.

  8. It’s a real shame that a small minority massively damage this for an hugely overwhelming majority.

    The entire idea of the carnival was borne out of a fight against violence. Those being violent are completely ruining it for many.