Interview | Description | Timestamps | Show Notes

iTunes | Spotify | Google Play | Deezer | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | TuneIn | RSS Feed

Download Episode MP3 File
The file will open in a new window. Click down arrow to download the file.

Location: Glasgow
Date: Tuesday, 22nd January 2020
Company: Scottish Violence Reduction Unit
Role: Former Detective Chief Superintendent

When John Carnochan joined Strathclyde Police as deputy head of CID in 2002, Glasgow, in particular, was experiencing extreme levels of violent crime. Scotland had become the murder capital of Europe and had five times the murder rate of London.

The methods used by the police were mostly ineffective, so John took a radical approach, launching the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) and the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence. This initiative offered education, health services, careers advice, social services and diversionary projects to the most vulnerable gang members. 

The VRU was a massive success. In 2004/05 there were 137 homicides in Scotland. By 2016/17 this number had dropped to 62, attempted murders dropped from 828 to 317, and serious assaults fell by almost half. 

In this interview, I talk to John Carnochan, former Detective Chief Superintendent. His Violence Reduction Unit and Community Initiative to Reduce Violence program helped significantly reduce violent crime and homicide rates in Scotland

SUPPORT THE SHOW

The success of Defiance will be largely down to the support of you, the listener. Below are a number of ways you can help:

• Subscribe to the show on your favourite app so you never miss an episode:

  • iTunes

  • Spotify

  • Deezer

  • Stitcher

  • SoundCloud

  • YouTube

  • TuneIn

• Leave a review of the show on iTunes (5* really helps, if you think the show deserves it).

• Share the show and episodes out with your friends and family on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Follow Defiance on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

• Subscribe to the Defiance mailing list.

• Donate Bitcoin here: bc1qd3anlc8lh0cl9ulqah03dmg3r2uxm5r657zr5p

If you have any questions then please email Defiance.

Coming soon…

Connect with John:

• On Twitter

• On LinkedIn

Mentioned in the show:

• NRP: How Glasgow Cut Crime After Once Being The 'Murder Capital Of Europe'

• BBC: Scotland named the most violent country in the developed world by the United Nations

• The Guardian: Scotland has second highest murder rate in Europe

• The Independent: Glasgow is Britain's murder capital as knife crime spirals

• The Times: Glasgow sheds ‘murder capital’ reputation as youth crime falls dramatically

• BBC: How Scotland stemmed the tide of knife crime

• Reuters: UK 2019 knife crime death toll passes 100

• Quartz: The numbers behind the UK’s knife crime “national emergency”

• Reuters: UK PM backs 'stop-and-search' power, says will create 10,000 more spaces in prisons

• The Guardian: How Scotland reduced knife deaths among young people

• The Guardian: Should we treat crime as something to be cured rather than punished?

• BBC: Glasgow drives huge fall in serious violent crime across Scotland

THANK YOU TO MY SPONSOR

Kraken - the best place to buy, sell or trade Bitcoin.