Knife crime swipes youth in Britain
words: FELICITY TAN
written October 2008
LONDON — As more and more youths are being victimized by knife crime, Britain’s ruling Labour Party unveiled on Sunday a multi-million pound crackdown on gang violence in the United Kingdom at its annual party conference in Manchester.
“Knife crime is a scourge that is harming and all too often destroying young lives up and down the country,” said Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that the government will spend over £20 million ($36 million) over the next three years to curb knife-related violence, mostly toward creating an accessible network to report such crimes and support its victims and their families. The scheme also includes a campaign “challenging the glamor” of knife crime, as well as providing police with better equipment to detect knives on persons.
The plan was announced the same day 10,000 protesters against gun and knife violence marched in London. The Sunday Telegraph also released a government report estimating that about 38,000 serious knife crimes would have been committed in England and Wales by the end of 2008 — a record-breaking average of 100 a day, for a population of 53.3 million.
photo credit: BBC
“On the streets, people are more afraid of kids than grown men,” said Londoner Madeleine Oliveros, 24. Government faces the challenge of changing an entire youth culture, where knives have become a security blanket.
“If one kid at school starts carrying a knife, then others follow because of the fear factor,” said high-schooler David Barnes.
University student Joseph Rainbow adds to that: “If you were a victim of knife crime, you’re likely to carry one around and victimize another, so it’s a spiraling problem.”
Mr Rainbow, 20, carries a knife with him for self-protection, and has been doing so since age 14. He admits to having used his blade twice against others. “It’s a dog eat dog world,” he said.
His friends said that they felt safe for as long as they were with Mr Rainbow. They estimated that about half their friends carry knives. “We’re so used to it, you don’t really think about the fact that half the people in this room own a
blade,” said Mr Rainbow.
It is illegal in the UK to carry knives, and it is an offense to carry sharp or bladed articles in public without legally defensible reason. The penalty can be up to two to four years in prison. “That’s not enough to scare most people from carrying knives,” said Mr Rainbow.
Weapon of Choice
According to the US-based Brady Campaign, firearms were used to murder 11,344 people in the United States in 2004, compared to 73 in Britain. But Daniel Weber, an American exchange student in London, said that despite the numbers, he was never concerned about being shot back home.
“I’m worried about me or my friends getting into fights [in London] because there is a real threat of being knifed,” he said. “In the States, no one is going to pull out a gun at you over something silly.”
He was referring to an 18-year-old recently convicted of stabbing another teenager to death because he thought the victim was staring at him.
Other high-profile knife cases this year include that of 16-year-old Ben Kinsella, stabbed to death outside a pub in North London in June, and those of two French students murdered in their Southeast London apartment in July.
Mr Rainbow said that he preferred knives to guns because people do not necessarily aim to kill others with knives, while guns “were made to kill.”
But according to The Guardian, more people in Britain are killed by knives than any other weapon, and despite efforts by Scotland Yard, the number is increasing. Thirty-one young people have been stabbed to death in the UK so far this year, compared to 27 in 2007.
No Place Safe?
Ali Zhaid, 28, said there is no place more unsafe than London, particularly East London, where he lives, and where most reported knife crimes take place. “There are hundreds of murders, mostly by teenagers,” he said. “They become more violent because they know they have a knife.”
But knife crime may not be just a “postcode problem,” as some of Sunday’s protesters suggested.
Mr Zhaid works the graveyard shift at a convenience store in South Kensington, and even in this affluent neighborhood, he said that he had repeatedly been robbed under the threat of a knife. He admits he has never been held at knifepoint, but said the possibility is too real to take the chance.
“Police are taking the problem seriously,” he said. “But they are spread thin, with the number of crimes in this very big city.” He said it usually takes 30 minutes for officers to arrive at the scene.
Shortcomings on the part of the authorities do not end there. Authorities began to collect data just last year to reflect the gravity of the problem. Even then, knife offenses categorized under “sexual assault” or “threats to kill” were excluded from the totals.
The 2008 survey reported by The Sunday Telegraph now counts these offenses separately. Illegal possession of knife, however, was not included. The disparity in tracking has led to much criticism and doubt because authorities are still underestimating the scale of knife crime.
Steve Rountree, 20, a student at one of Britain’s top universities, said that there is a simple solution to the problem: allow everyone to carry knives. “We’ll be scared enough not to use it,” he said.
And that kind of response is exactly what government wants to change. State Secretary for Justice Jack Straw.
Straw said he intended to “open up the justice system” through the Internet, a medium young people could relate to.
“It’s about a change of culture, of attitude,” he said.
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