Violence is my thing, says John Carnochan OBE.

He’s certainly experienced that first hand as a ’big, roughty, tufty’ detective in the mean streets of Glasgow’s East End at a time when the city was the murder capital of Europe.

A cop for 39 years, he retired as Deputy Chief Superintendent at Strathcylde Constabulary in 2013.

His solution to Glasgow’s gang violence and spiralling homicide rate was revolutionary.

Rather than meet violence with an iron fist, he set out to understand what motivated young men to join the gangs and to try to change their behaviour.

And vital to this was treating the gang members as humans first and foremost, and dealing with violence as a public health issue.

Last week John gave a talk in the Keyll Daree lecture hall to some 110 police, probation, prison and mental health workers, following the next day with a presentation to Tynwald members.

He was invited to the island by Sergeant Stuart McLean who worked as a policeman in Glasgow before moving to the Manx force three years ago.

Stuart said: ’In the war against violence, John won hearts and minds. I was witness to these changes not only as a police officer but as member of the public growing up in the community.

’He made the streets a safer place.’

When John joined Strathclyde police as deputy head of CID in 2002, homicide rates were close to unprecedented levels.

He recalls a time when there were five murders in one weekend.

John told the Keyll Daree audience: ’We were chipping away at the bits above the water line, the bits you can see. But it didn’t make a blind bit of difference to the size of the iceberg.

’I said if you want to shrink violence you will have to raise the temperature of the water.’

A whole new way of looking at things was needed.

’Why does violence happen? It’s mostly a man thing. We learn how not to be violent. That makes early years really important,’ he says.

Studies into adverse childhood experiences showed how abuse, neglect, divorce and witnessing domestic violence have long-lasting impacts.

The effects on children of policing activities needed to be considered too.

’You still have to arrest these guys but you don’t have to crash the door in front of the kids. Wait until they’ve gone to school,’ he says.

’If you bring up a child in a war zone, you will create a warrior.’

He suggested that disruptive kids are seeking connections and if they don’t get them, they become yet more detached.

John tells the story of one such child, David, born in 2005 in the deprived ward of Easterhouse. His mother an alcoholic, he was rehoused multiple times due to domestic violence and then moved in with his grandmother, matriarch of a criminal dynasty.

jailed

David became involved in gang rivalry, left school and at the age of just 15 was jailed for murder of a man he stabbed in the chest. ’We could have done more but we didnae,’ John says.

Violence is not inevitable but preventable, he insists.

The violence reduction unit he set up brought together education, health services, careers advice and social services. Information was shared and relationships built.

Projects were set up to divert youths from criminal behaviour - football matches organised on Saturday nights, a peak time for gang violence.

Results were impressive with murders down from 142 to 61 between 2004-05 and 2013-14. Attempted murders fell from 828 to 317 over the same period and serious assaults were reduced from 6,775 to 2,995.

John points out that the figures were for reported crime and the real numbers could be much higher. And he accepts that there is still much to be done - but Glasgow is much safer than it used to be.

John has mixed views about the legalisation of cannabis in Canada but points out: ’Nobody who has had a spliff wanted to fight me - marry me, yes, or dance with me, yes!’