How do we stop young people carrying knives?

Are we in the midst of a knife crime epidemic? Politicians and the media seem to think so, particularly among young people.

Last week Hollywood actor Idris Elba called for action in a BBC documentary exploring the issue. The same week, a 14-year-old was charged with the fatal stabbing of 12-year-old Birmingham schoolboy Lee Ross. 

The week before, Alex Rudakubana was sentenced to life imprisonment for a horrific knife attack that left three young girls dead in Southport. He was 17 at the time of the atrocity.

And this week 15-year-old Harvey Willgoose was fatally stabbed at his school in Sheffield. A 15-year-old teenager has been charged with his murder.

Labour has called knife crime a “national crisis” and pledged to halve it in ten years.

But Ashley Stokes, a team manager in the London borough of Southwark’s Youth Justice Service, urges caution in the way the issue is discussed. He suggests magnifying knife crime could be creating a “moral panic” that, tragically, is adding to the problem, particularly in the minds of impressionable young people.

“I think there is a perception that more people are carrying weapons than actually are and that creates anxiety for young people,” he says.

“They may feel they need to actually carry a weapon in order to protect themselves.”

Official figures show there were 50,500 knife crimes in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024. In context of the 6.66 million crimes in England and Wales last year it’s a relatively small fraction. And of 19,000 convictions and cautions for knife crime, only 18 per cent (3,420) related to people aged between ten and 17.

That said, knife crime is rising, up 4.4 per cent on the previous year and nearly a quarter (23.3 per cent) since 2014/15.

It’s also most prevalent in densely populated urban areas with higher levels of deprivation. The West Midlands has the highest rate of knife crime per 100,000 of the population (178), followed by London (169). Dyfed-Powys in Wales has the lowest (29).

The City of London, Northumbria and Avon and Somerset have seen the highest rises over the last five years.

According to The Ben Kinsella Trust, teenagers are more likely to be fatally stabbed than any other age group. The charity, named after the 16-year-old who was stabbed to death in 2008, says the risk has more than doubled over the last ten years.

Deirdre Leask, a team manager and social worker specialising in restorative justice at Southwark, says: “I'm very struck by how many of the young people who come to our attention for the first time are caught with a knife in school because they're absolutely terrified, and they think that carrying a knife, possibly partly because of this inflated fear, will protect them. And then they get excluded, possibly permanently excluded, and then criminalised.”

Both Ashley and Deirdre believe schools have an important role to play in keeping young people safe but this is not always happening.

“Schools are more willing to exclude young people or limit their education through off rolling or reduced timetables and that sees young people on the streets, at greater risk of being exploited through county lines or more localised child criminal exploitation,” says Ashley. “Which in turn, increases the risk of carrying knives through being exploited into drug dealing, having that fear and that lifestyle.”

Deirdre believes the curriculum sets some pupils up to fail, alienating them from education and society.

“The curriculum has been so narrowed down. It's sometimes hard for our kids to achieve in some of those mainstream subjects. They may be lacking confidence about their literacy or numeracy skills, or just sitting in that classroom environment, or it's something that they're not interested in.

“We need schools where there is a more diverse curriculum, where there are more chances for kids who aren't coping in the mainstream to still be in school, in a safe space during the day and feel welcome there.

“We could really do with smaller, more nurturing classes; that private school model with a lot of individual attention.”

The increase in young people with neurodiversity such as ADHD who are more vulnerable to exploitation by criminal gangs is another factor, adds Deirdre.

“We get the impression that these young people are targeted because they are eager to impress because they have been kicked out of school. Special educational needs is not putting two and two together. All those things contribute to making them more susceptible.”

Both Deirdre and Ashley believe knife crime should be treated as much as a public health issue as a criminal justice one.

“Our mantra is child first, offender second. It is hard to do that when you have a justice system that is very much focusing on the offence,” says Deirdre. “We also have a duty to keep the public safe so it is a very difficult one.”

Ashley believes those involved in knife crime are victims themselves: “If we look at the history of a lot of our knife carriers, there's been some kind of victimisation, bullying trauma in their past.

“At Southwark we created an initiative which we call the Stay Safe Trauma Informed Weapons Awareness Programme.

“What we found is that previous interventions, which involved scaring young people by showing them really graphic knife wounds or taking them on prison visits to show them where they'd end up, didn't work.

“They are already traumatised and already scared, and by actually doubling down on that fear, we're not encouraging them to not carry weapons. We're kind of doing the opposite because they are thinking how do they stay safe? 

“We need to explore how do they manage their emotions? How do they make better decisions? So in addition to educating them on the consequences - legal, social and physical - there's also lots of work we do around emotional literacy, emotional regulation, how to stay safe in the community, how to utilise your support networks.”

The reasons for youth knife crime are multi-faceted. According to the charity Action on Armed Violence, exploitation by gangs is a “key driver”. Young people, particularly in urban areas, are lured into “drug-related activities”, such as county lines, and often carry knives to protect the drugs they are transporting.

The charity also highlights “socio-economic vulnerabilities”, such as poverty, lack of educational opportunities and mental health issues.

Closure of youth clubs, fewer police on the streets and cuts to community services are also blamed.

“It must impact on young people when they haven't got places to go that are positive,” says Deirdre.” And also you wonder about the pressure parents are increasingly under, with austerity, poverty and then Covid and the cost of living crisis.

“That can impact on people's lives in terms of feeling disaffected and unsafe.”

Ashley also cites the housing crisis.

“We’ve got families of up to eight in a two bedroom flat, with all the boys sharing a room and mum and dad on the sofa and all the girls in another room.

“It’s completely understandable why those young people aren't going to do their homework.

“They're going to spend more time staying out late at night and, once again, they become targeted by people that want to exploit them directly, or peers encouraging them to get involved in a lifestyle they wouldn't otherwise.”

The government is putting £200 million into recruiting an extra 13,000 police officers into neighbourhoods. 

It has also pledged to place youth workers and mentors in A&E units and pupil referral units to work with young people at risk of knife crime.

A new offence of criminal exploitation of children is currently going through parliament and every young person caught with a knife will be referred to a youth offending team.

“It is about getting in at the right time for that young person,” says Ashley. “If that person has been injured and thinking of making a change, or something has happened to someone in their family, then they might be more reflective and receptive to that. I think we get better outcomes for that kind of reachable moment with young people.”