Time to strike back against knife attacks

While the terrible impact of this on families and communities shouldn't be underestimated, the British Crime Survey shows that knife crime over the past decade has remained stable at around six to seven per cent of all crime. At the same time, the phenomenon is becoming increasingly entrenched in certain groups, namely young people, mostly boys, living in deprived inner-city areas. Surveys of school-age children in London report about a third as having carried a knife. Young males are most at risk of becoming victims, as well as perpetrators of knife crime.

The government has responded to the problem by using a variety of measures, including knife amnesties and raising the legal age of knife ownership to 18 years. Yet it is the knife culture behind the crime itself that we need to address, and this is best done within the communities that are most plagued by this crime and working with the young people who are at risk.