I’m often asked my opinion on crime prevention in the UK and whether I think the police are doing their jobs correctly in terms of stopping and searching ‘youths’ for guns and knives. Being the lil rebel that I am I always turn my nose up at the governments way of doing things and have a lil rant about seeing people stopped and searched for no reason, even so, when it comes to “so what will work then?” I’m always left with little reply and believe me, with the amount I talk, getting a low and mumbled response out of this pretty lil mouth is pretty unique. So I’ve come up with a fixed answer, it’s clever and you can’t really question it. “Ask the ‘youth’ themselves, what do the people committing crimes and the people who are victims of knife and gun crimes think will stop it from reoccurring?”

Now we’ve got an answer, not a full answer, but the ‘youth’ of Merseyside have spoken, in the form of “Shooting Star Poets”, they’ve made a track entitled “Campaign Time” which is centred around thinking about crime prevention, putting down the guns and knives and mourning for those who have lost someone to violence, in the form of six emcee’s and a singer. Now lets be fair, the tracks not that great in terms of ever trying to chart and have a hit record and they could have gotten someone way more famous then Trim but I doubt they’re trying to chart and at least they’re doing something to try and stop people from stabbing each other in the back – literally.

After doing a little research on the Shooting Star Poets it turns out they’ve been together since 2003 as a crew and have all separately been involved in crime in one way or another, if that’s not background and incentive enough to get up and take action then I don’t know what is. The campaign they are working on is supported by SAMM (Support After Murder and Manslaughter) and their aim is to tackle the subject of knife and gun crime using music as a platform. SAMM is a registered company who deal with the aftermath of the families affected by these issues and and they provide research into the affect crime has on society. I’ve never really seen how a tune about crime prevention could help the crime rate in the UK go down, music’s supposed to be a vybzers but I really hope that if everyone takes it a little bit more seriously and actually listens this could be a step in the right direction. I mean UPROAR and Rolling G’s made a tune about Swine Flu and had half the nation wearing swine flu masks so why can’t Shooting Star Poets make a tune about putting down knives and make half the nation put down their weapons?

I rest my case. Anyway – I dunno, let me know your thoughts and if you want more information contact their website. The tracks out in April and you can catch the Shooting Star Poets performing live at ILUVLIVE in Proud Camden on the 29th March.

Toodles.

Sian xxx