“We were supposed to be doing a homicide prevention strategy,” John Carnochan says as he smiles wryly. “It certainly grew from there.”
It was 2005, and Glasgow had the unwelcome reputation of being one of the most violent places in Europe.
Scotland’s murder rate was more than four times that of England and Wales – led by Glasgow – and half of all killings involved a knife.
Carnochan, a police officer with some 30 years in the force, was all too aware that behind those figures lay real people whose lives were devastated by violence, and who left families and loved ones shattered.
When he looked at the issue with Strathclyde Police analyst Karyn McCluskey (main picture), it was clear that the police approach to knife crime simply wasn’t working.
“We went back and we said ‘look, the problem is not homicide… the problem is violence’.
“When we looked at the statistics, we found that 90 per cent of the violent acts weren’t being caused by organised criminal groups. It was young guys fighting each other, slashing each other.
“And maybe the ambulance was two minutes late, or maybe the blade went two centimetres to the right, and the guy dies.
“We realised we had no control over those things, but we could do something to stop the fight in the first place.”
“It wasn’t organised criminal groups. It was young guys fighting, stabbing each other, slashing each other. We can do something about the fight happening in the first place”
VRU founder John Carnochan
Under the aegis of Strathclyde’s chief constable Willie Rae, the pair were empowered to set up what became the Violence Reduction Unit – spearheading a new approach that led the way in tackling violence, with the central belief that violent crime was preventable.
“Willie said: ‘what do you need to fix this?’” Carnochan remembers.
“And I said: ‘I think you need three or four really smart people, and you lock them in a room until they come up with a solution’.
“He told me: ‘I’ll give you a room, you find another two people’. And that was it.”
The idea was simple, but it changed policing – not just in Scotland, but across the world – with the decision to treat violence as both a crime and a public health issue.
At the time, there were no grand national ambitions, just a laser focus on fixing what was happening locally.
“We started with knife crime because that was the biggest issue for us. We had no plans to be national – we started with our own backyard.”
They did the groundwork: focusing on hotspots such as Easterhouse in the east end of Glasgow, mapping police processes, tracking how long it took for someone caught with a knife to reach court, and pushing for policy change.
If someone was stopped with a knife, for example, they would be arrested, fingerprinted, and DNA tested so the VRU could track the case and urge prosecutors to take knife crime seriously.
The pair’s motto became “proceed until apprehended”, McCluskey tells 1919.
“We just kept going until someone told us to stop,” she laughs. “We spoke to 15,500 people face-to-face. Cajoled, convinced, listened.”
It was never just a matter of driving down the headline figures, but trying to change something fundamental in the communities most affected by violence.
McCluskey and Carnochan approached the task with a strong sense of mission – with people at the heart of everything they did.
“People’s lives were fundamentally changed by violence,” explains McCluskey.
“We always remember the mothers whose children were taken from them. We stepped up to try and make fewer victims.
“It wasn’t just about the murder rate, but to make Scotland a safer place to grow up in.
“I loved it because you got to work with a group of passionate people with the will and the ability to innovate and do things differently.”
The work was driven by curiosity – a desire to understand the world and why people acted in a certain way.
“You get to work with a group of passionate people with the will and ability to innovate and do things differently. It wasn’t just about the murder rate, but making Scotland a safer place to grow up in”
McCluskey lights up when she talks about the excitement of uncovering things, of getting intelligence and finding a different pattern to the police figures.
“I loved that – I loved finding a different piece of the jigsaw,” she says.
“I remember one day I met a guy at a bus stop. We got chatting and he told me his bus was off because the seats had been slashed. That set something off – how people travel, what happens on buses, where people are.
“We sat down and worked out the bus routes, we looked at where the seats were slashed, and we put cops at the back of buses to find the kids with knives.”
“We were fiercely curious”, agrees Carnochan. “We were really interested in doing something different – not for its own sake but to be effective. We were always asking: ‘why?’”
Carnochan describes the fledgling VRU as an “outsider” – something that was one of its greatest strengths – although it sometimes threw up challenges.
“As always, there were some who got it, and there were some who didn’t. Some of our most challenging partnerships were with other police forces.
“But the people closest to the point of impact understood what we were trying to do. The cops on the street got it, the social workers got it, the teachers got it.”
Despite its local focus, the organisation was rolled out nationally in 2006, and it has continued to make a huge difference to violence in Scotland.
Last month, the latest statistics showed homicides have fallen to record levels here, and two decades on the SVRU and its approach is no longer an experiment, but an established part of how Scotland addresses the issues it faces.
Yet the country still faces challenges around gang violence, and officers on the street continue to face violent situations daily.
Meanwhile, social media and the internet is creating a new frontier for anti-violence work.
That is something McCluskey is only too aware of in her current role as chief executive of Community Justice Scotland.
“It can actually be more difficult in the environment we are in,” she says.
“Young people are spending time alone, online, and that brings a whole range of different challenges.
“They aren’t learning how to manage their emotions, or to disagree well.
“When it comes to violence, serious events are starting online. They don’t know how to walk away. It gets pumped up and pumped up and a drama becomes a crisis.
“We need to give young people techniques – the same de-escalation techniques that we teach to cops and to prison officers.”
For Jimmy Paul, who became head of the SVRU in 2021, the mission remains rooted in the learnings and achievements of the past 20 years – but must adapt to the changing landscape.
“The questions we are asking are how far have we come? What have we learned? How can we make sure we are set up for the challenges of Scotland today?” he says.
“Violence adapts and evolves. We face complex challenges today. Violence is more complex than ever.
“Twenty years ago, Glasgow was the murder capital of Europe. Now homicide has halved. It’s at a historic all time low.
“But violence is complex. We have more violence against women and girls and a rise in misogyny. We have challenges around drugs and alcohol.
“Violence has moved from what happens on the street to the home, and it has moved online. Put simply, you will never sort violence in the community if you don’t sort it in the home. Our approach must do the same.”
“Violence has moved from what happens on the street to the home, and it has moved online. Put simply, you will never sort violence in the community if you don’t sort it in the home”
SVRU director Jimmy Paul
Despite the challenges, Paul is positive when he thinks about the future, describing the SVRU as convenors of a “chorus of hope”.
“We can catalyse change,” he says, with clear sincerity. “We help people to believe that change is possible.”
That chorus of hope is something that is woven into the very origins of the organisation.
Something reflected on by McCluskey, who describes herself as “a little part” of the journey to make people’s lives better.
Paul says: “Everything that we have done happened because of the early work by John and Karyn.
“We all have a role to play and understanding that was a big part of our success in the past. We need to double down and do that again to meet the challenges of today.”
If the origins of the VRU are in knife crime, the future lies in technology and the home.
“Social media can connect, but it can also divide,” Paul says. “With one click you can see endless violent content. It drives fear. It drives hopelessness.”
He also points to the impact of the wider economy on communities, with more people in poverty and core services losing funding.
But like his predecessors, he remains hopeful. “We know what it takes: invest in young people, and you invest in Scotland’s future.”
Perhaps the biggest symbol of hope for the future lies in the people who are writing the next chapter of the SVRU.
A new advisory board, made of people who used to be involved in violence, has just been recruited, and they are being trained and supported to guide the organisation into its next decade.
“We put lived experience at the heart of everything we do,” Paul says. “The ultimate goal is for us to not exist. We want a Scotland where victims are supported, offenders rehabilitated, and violence prevented before it begins.
“This job has been a joy and a privilege,” he smiles. “Every day I hear stories of loss, grief, and sadness, but also of resilience.”