Ex-Scotland Yard murder chief slams knife strategy

LONDON (Reuters) - Police stop and search tactics to tackle knife crime in London could end up making teenage gangs stronger and the problem worse, the former head of Scotland Yard's murder prevention unit said on Thursday.

Laura Richards, a criminal behaviour psychologist who ran the unit for four years till last summer, told the BBC a targeted approach to known offenders would be more successful.

The BBC said her team's research into street knife crime had found that around 90 percent of offenders were known to the police well before they committed the offences.

The unit had proposed targeting those likely to commit knife crime as a way of addressing the problem, rather than carrying out random searches.

Last month Scotland Yard said they had arrested 1,214 people in London during a six-week crackdown in response to concern over levels of knife crime.

Officers found 528 knives after conducting nearly 27,000 searches during Operation Blunt 2, launched after Boris Johnson was elected London Mayor in May pledging to tackle knife crime.

"I think a lot more could be being done as opposed to just a hard-edged enforcement around stop and search," Richards told the BBC.

"If we're seeing a number of the guys who are committing the murders are already marginalised, already excluded and we are trying those kind of tactics on those individuals, I fear we just make the problem worse.

"If you do the same kind of tactic around those individuals you just make the gangs stronger," she said.