The knife crime crisis has been claiming young lives for far too long
Submitted for publication to Huffington Post in August
Awareness has grown but we haven’t yet taken the action necessary to get a grip on this epidemic.
With a new Prime Minister in post, now is the time to dial up the response. Serious youth violence should be at the top of the new PM’s agenda as he shapes his premiership over the coming weeks.
The young people Barnardo’s supports tell us that they don’t want knife crime to become the norm. They don’t want their friends who have been stabbed to be just another statistic.
We’ve listened to what these young people have to say. Now it’s time for the Government to do the same.
Their voices can’t be ignored. They are the ones who are dying, being wounded, or watching their friends lose their lives or get seriously hurt.
They’re the ones who see what’s happening on our streets and they’re the ones who can offer the most valuable insight into how we solve the problem.
For just under two years, Barnardo’s has been working with the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Knife Crime, looking into the root causes of serious youth violence and what can be done to tackle it.
We recognised that we can’t do this without including young people, so that’s exactly what we did. We brought together a group of 16 young people from across the country who have all been impacted by knife crime in their communities.
They told us they’re scared to walk from their estate to school and feel they have to carry a knife to keep themselves safe.
They said that for many, carrying a knife has become the norm in communities struggling as a result of cuts to youth services and depleted community policing.
They also told us numerous stories of young people being exploited by the drug trade, coerced into carrying drugs by gangs who use social media as a recruitment tool.
Some young people have reached a point where they simply don’t believe there’s an alternative to knife crime. With no prospect of better housing, qualifications or a stable job, and no role models to look up to, gangs, drugs and prison are the only possibilities they see in their future. It’s what I call the ‘poverty of hope’.
What these insightful young people concluded is that there’s no one solution, so they’ve come up with a 12 point manifesto which outlines what they believe needs to be done.
They want to tackle the underlying causes of violent crime — like the lack of housing and unemployment — and requiring schools to provide better support to young people who are at risk of involvement in crime.
They also call on the Government to provide support to young people who are already involved, or at risk of becoming involved in, gang or “county lines” activity and a clear strategy on how to help victims of criminal exploitation to escape.
In short, sensitive, holistic solutions rooted in communities are what’s needed to tackle this complex and nuanced problem.
And Adults agree. Almost two thirds (65 per cent) responding to a YouGov survey commissioned for Barnardo’s said more safe places and activities for children such as youth clubs, sports clubs, community centres would make their area safer for children from knife crime.
While 60 per cent surveyed think more investment in neighbourhoods to combat poverty, inequality and unemployment will help.
Just last week, five young people delivered a letter alongside their manifesto direct to Downing Street, calling on the Prime Minister to make knife crime his top priority and inviting him to meet with them to find a way forward.
Of course, it’s not just up to the Government and young people to solve the problem of knife crime. That’s why Barnardo’s is playing its part too. For example, the Barnardo’s Cymru service Divert in Newport works with children aged 11 to 16 at risk of getting caught up in gang culture and serious and organised crime. We recognise that early intervention is key, and that’s why through this project we work with Gwent Police and Newport Youth Offending Service to identify young people most at risk for gang and serious criminal exploitation and refer them to Divert.
But it’s glaringly obvious that policing alone is not the answer to solving knife crime. Together with the young people involved in the APPG, we’ve been pushing for a joined-up approach.
There is an opportunity for the new PM’s Government to do things differently, to work more effectively across departments and treating knife crime as a health and social issue — not just as a criminal justice issue.
We urge the Prime Minister to ensure children’s services, educationalists, charities, social workers, youth workers, police, the criminal justice system and local communities all work together on this.
We can’t expect results overnight and so we have to be prepared for it to take a number of years. But the sooner we take real action, the sooner knife crime will stop stealing the lives and the futures of our children and young people. If we carry on the way we are, we’re condemning future generations to an endless spiral of violence.
