Knives Ending Lives: A media analysis of Britain’s current knife crime crisis and an insight into its mainstream coverage
For some reason in today’s British society, all we seem to hear about weekly through the news are new stories surrounding knife offences. Knife crime has surged since 2014 and is currently widespread across the UK. It’s becoming a growing problem across Britain, especially due to the impact it’s been having on the youths of today. England and Wales have had 43, 516 knife crime offences in the previous 12 months ending March 2019, which is the highest figure since comparable data has been collected (bbc.co.uk).
England’s capital city of London for the most part has been the hub of the country’s knife crime explosion, with over 3,200 arrests for possession in 2019 (bbc.co.uk). In fact the national crisis has become so topical that mainstream newspapers such as The Mirror, The Guardian and The Telegraph now have online pages dedicated to news about knife crime, and these now have catalogues of articles from over the past few years.
The Mirror: https://www.mirror.co.uk/all-about/knife-crime
The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/knife-crime/
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/knifecrime
Such crises are dependent on the national news media, and coverage of knife crime has been severe over the past two years. However, there’s little agreement as to what caused the crisis, and how to the solve it. Knife crime in the UK is a problematic topic, anyone can get access to a knife, carry a knife, or use one. This therefore suggests that there are underlying factors as to why this is on going, as to why these people think to use a knife as a weapon. It’s clear that this is an issue that cannot be solved overnight, and the media portrays there to be different factors as to what is causing this. But at the same time casualties and deaths are increasing as time goes on. The hunt for solutions continues, yet so too does the outbreak.
How incidents and images were portrayed?
The key terms that come to mind with regards to media coverage of the knife crime crisis are scaremongering, moral panic, framing, mediation and imagery. Right wing tabloids especially, saw their opportunity to disseminate fear amongst the public, and they took it.
For example, The Express (a newspaper that is bought mainly by Conservative voters) used the word ‘Bloodbath’ in their headlines more than once as a way to describe London in 2019. As said articles went on, they hammered Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, putting him partly at fault for the crisis. The London Mayor has suffered heavy criticism in recent times with regards to the rise in crime within the capital. However, this is likely to be because he puts the crisis down to the current Conservative governments austerity policies; spending cuts that have led to social exclusion and threadbare infrastructure for the many deprived in this country (theguardian.com).
On more than one occasion again, The Daily Express & The Daily Mail (another tabloid with a predominantly Conservative audience) described Britain as the ‘Wild West’ within their headlines with regards to the outbreak of knife crime. The exaggeration is evident and I’m sure that the framing of knife crime within the media as such a large epidemic has been done so to cause controversy amongst an uncertain public audience. The age demographics for both these tabloids are majority 35+, therefore are likely to be uninformed about underlying causes surrounding knife crime. By scaremongering them, they simultaneously have an agenda, trying to create appeal for the current conservative government who “will empower the Police to tackle scourge of violent knife crime” pledged current Prime Minister Boris Johnson in late 2019.
Regarding the left wing media coverage, they are more successful in uncovering the underlying reasons as to why this outbreak is occurring. The Daily Mirror highlighted as mentioned before the scale of funds stripped by the current government, and how this has denied access to youth services in areas where crime was already high, simply because these services are no longer there. A memorable headline that they once ran was “How many more, Mrs May?” sending out a message towards former PM Theresa May as she cut Police numbers yet refused to believe that her actions effected knife crime.
As well as this, The Mirror utilised powerful imagery within their articles, as a method to still put fear into the mind of the public. However, it is clear that the agenda is against the Conservative government. Images of knife crime victims, or crime scenes with flowers are good ways of getting their audience on side through sympathy. And when placing such images alongside text that puts blame on the government, it makes is easier for the reader to turn against them.
Is there an underlying racial bias?
A hot topic around the UK’s knife crime crisis is the over-representation of the black community in the media. In his book Folk devils and moral panics, Stan Cohen talks of Wilkins’ idea about how the mass media may amplify information about a certain social group, in order to create a societal reaction, and for that group to be labelled as folk devils. Mediation has caused black males from London especially to be over represented with regards to stabbings in recent times. I mean really when was the last time you read about a white on white stabbing is the news? That’s not because it doesn’t go on.
White people carry out the majority of violent crime in the UK, and the majority of knife crime victims in the UK are white. However, the myth of black on black violence has been mediated first by law and order, and used as a method to force the black community to be accepting of intrusive policing. Leading me to believe that this has had a knock on effect on through the mainstream media. The media have lacked objectivity in the representation of knife crime, as well as amplifying the risk of black on black violence as much as they can, even though there is less of it in comparison. A moral panic was created surrounding young black males and knife crime, when really other races were just as much to blame for the outbreak.
The following link is to an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain with rapper and scholar Akala. Being of black origin Akala is keen throughout to highlight how there is no racial element towards social implications surrounding the knife crime crisis. He explains clearly as to how what he refers to as ‘the racial virtue signalling right wing press’ fail to highlight race when they are reporting white on white violent crime, however are quick to mention race when its black on black violent crime. When asked about how to tackle the crisis he uses the example of Glasgow to good affect. Glasgow was once labelled the most dangerous city in Europe, however had zero murders to teenagers in 2017.
The fact that this interview aired on one of the countries most popular shows on national television, displays that there is growing support and awareness around the idea that there needs to be a shift away from the over representation of young black males when it comes to knife crime in the media, and an end to labelling this social group as the folk devil.
The effect of ‘Drillers’
Alongside the rise of knife crime in the UK over the past five years, has been the rise in popularity of Drill music. A genre dominated by black male gang members from London. The Police see gangs in London especially as a major cause related to knife crime. It would be a massive win for the Police if they were to end the current gang culture that lives throughout the capital. And most black on black stabbings in recent times have been gang related.
In what Beck refers to as the ‘risk society’ that we live in today, effects are systematically produced to suggest that there is danger in the public. Risk doesn’t refer to damages incurred; however it does threaten destruction in society.
“The discourse of risk begins where our trust in our security ends and ceases to be relevant when the potential catastrophe occurs.”
Ulrich Beck in World risk society.
The Police targeted drill music in 2018, as they believed that it incited violence amongst its main audience, the youth (independent.co.uk). However there is no solid proof that Drill music has caused any of the violent knife crimes that have occurred throughout the crisis. The accusations just lead the public further into a state of uncertainty. Which leaves the argument to still go on today about the effects that Drill music is having on younger people, and whether they are positive or negative.
We’ve seen in previous events such as the London riots of 2011 as to how social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook can be the hubs of information surrounding the crisis. Again with regards to the current knife crime crisis, social media has had a part to play, but in a different way this time. YouTube (ranked the UK’ second most popular social media site) has had a key role as it’s given Drill rappers a platform to display their content. Senior Police officers said that Drill artists’ music videos contain graphic threats and glamorise violence, and in 2018 YouTube were quick to delete more than half videos suggested by the Met Police. This action taken by YouTube adds to the alarmist tendencies of the media that amplify fear amongst the public, framing the risk of Drill music so that it echoes within the audience.
The link below is to another Good Morning Britain interview with multi-hit rappers ‘Krept & Konan’. Listening to their views plays down the idea that Drill music may not be the sole cause that has lead to the knife crisis; in fact they describe it as a way of helping the community, giving youngsters the opportunity to make music rather than spending time on the streets in gangs. They suggest that the media has made it a ‘scapegoat’.
Non-Governmental organisations
As mentioned in the previous interview, Krept and Konan have set up ‘The Positive Direction Foundation’, which targets the youth and seeks to provide them with more opportunities to discover and express themselves creatively. This organisation was formed as a method of helping to keep youngsters away from spending their time out on the streets, and occupying them with more creative activities mainly involving music and other performing arts. Therefore, kids who are part of the foundation are less likely to result in joining the gang culture that lives throughout the streets of our country currently.
The PD foundation is one of many NGO’s recently setup to help the prevention of kids involvement in violent crime in the future. The Ben Kinsella trust is an organisation that has been consistently running from since before the knife crime crisis broke out. It was formed in 2008 after the violent death of 16-year-old Ben Kinsella in Islington. Nevertheless the organisation still helps out today nationwide after growing to become so big over the years. They run workshops at both primary and secondary school level, educating children about the dangers of knife crime and how to make positive choices in life going forward.
The large list continues as in 2018 Sadiq Khan revealed how he was providing support for 43 anti-knife crime projects ranging from boxing clubs to mentoring workshops. And these span across the capital city of London, which we know is currently the centre of the crisis.
Conclusion
The conclusions that can be drawn from this are that the media are the sole crucial source for the public’s information on current social problems. Therefore, the power is in their hands about how to dictate to us as an audience about how such national crises are unfolding, and what we should think about such events. Whether it be through mediation, amplification, scaremongering, or scapegoating, the press knows full well how to gauge the control of their audience’s thoughts about the knife crime crisis in this case. Whether what they are saying is completely factual or has been framed in some sort of way only to reveal certain facts. It boils down to the public’s uncertainty surrounding dangerous events that they are not entirely educated on. Therefore, making the public more likely to enter a state of fear about what is going on, if the right (not ethically right) information is fed to them through the mainstream media.
It could be agreed that factors such as race or social media content can be ruled out as social implications that have caused this crisis. However, the crisis also highlights how the power of the media can be used positively to highlight the underlying, more likely true reasons behind the outbreak of such a crisis. As well as challenge the powers that be i.e. The Government and the Police, about the decisions they’re making and how they are negatively affecting a proportion of the population in this country. It’s just a shame that the current government is reluctant to actually care for these people.
More needs to be done if we want to see this crisis come to an end. However with the current situation that this country is in, I see it continuing and I don’t see it being a major priority of the authorities in the near future. It’s devastating to think of how many have lost their lives, and would still be here with so much ahead of them if everyone just put the knives down.