By Lavanya Lal, Y11
On the 29th of November, 2019, at the end of an event organised by the Cambridge University of criminology at Fishmonger’s hall, a man caused a panic, by threatening to blow up the hall with a suicide vest. Although it turned out to be fake, the attack and the fear it caused were very real. The attacker, Usman Khan, also had two knives taped to his wrists with the help of which he attacked the attenders. Many of the brave attendees stood up and fought back in order to protect themselves, while others contacted the police, which soon arrived, armed, at the scene. Usman escaped the building and injured several people before he was disarmed and stopped by one a member of the public.
Among the five seriously injured victims, two, Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, died from their stab wounds.
Usman Khan had been one of nine men who had been arrested in 2010 as suspects of planning to bomb the London Stock Exchange. Khan had admitted to other terror offences, involving fundraising and recruiting for a terrorist military training facility in Kashmir, India.
Khan plead guilty in 2012 and received an indeterminate sentence in 2012 with a minimum term of eight years. This status meant that he could not be released whilst he was still considered to be a danger to the public. However, in a following appeal in 2013, his indeterminate sentence was replaced with a 16-year prison sentence, which meant he would be entitled to automatic release on license after having served eight years.
Usman Khan, 28, was released from jail on license in 2018, half-way through his 16-year sentence for terrorism offences.
The tragedy of the event is that the conference targeted was in celebration of the fifth anniversary of Learning Together, a program run by the Cambridge Institute of Criminology to help offenders reintegrate into society following their release from prison. According to BBC, one of the students, Alice Harnett, talked about her experience of working with prisoners on the program for the national prison newspaper, Inside Times. She said, “the scheme combined students from inside and outside of the prison to come together and experience a carefully structured academic-based course” and that it “insists on seeing the best in people” through a “genuinely mutual exchange” of ideas between students and prisoners.
In our school, many students have family members or loved ones back in London, and I asked them about how they felt after this news and their opinions on the matter. While many said that they were worried about their family members, given that knife crimes in London are increasing at an alarming rate, many stated that they were comparatively less worried as these incidents are rare and well handled.
One of my friends told me that one of her known relatives was present near the incident. She had been at her office, close to the London bridge when tourists and people on the roads had been taken inside her office building to keep them safe. For hours my friend’s relative was trapped in the office and was only allowed to go out when the Usman had been declared dead.
I asked my other classmates what they thought about whether these terrorists should ever be released from prisoners. Two believed that life sentences should be given, and two others proceeded to say that these prisoners could be helped with the right guidance and should not serve life sentences.
One of the latter explained that they should go to an intensive program in order to be rehabilitated into society, and that they believed in second chances, even though sometimes it turns out to be bad. They also added that people do not improve if confined to prisons which often have lacklustre conditions. Although many people argue that prisoners are naturally at a higher risk of reconviction, a lack of sufficient attempts to integrate prisoners back into society may be a culprit.
I personally believe that no one is born good or evil but rather, that we are all born with tendencies towards both. It sounds cheesy, right? But, how about you?
