FIGHTING
KNIFE CRIME
As the world find its new normal, we can't go back to business as usual when tackling youth violence. Florence Eshalomi MP, Co-Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group on Knife Crime and Serious Violence
A
s the MP for Vauxhall and Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Knife Crime and Violence Reduction, I see the devastating impact knife crime is having on families and communities of those affected. We see life-changing injuries that victims have to live with for the rest of their lives. Most tragic is the avoidable loss of life—mostly among young, Black males. Only last month just a short walk away from my constituency office near the Oval cricket ground, a 16-year-old was stabbed. We know the journey towards committing knife crime starts from a young age. More than a fifth of offences involving knife crime were committed by children under 18, some as young as nine years old. It is impossible for me to imagine a scenario where a nine-yearold child could be involved in something like this- but that’s the reality of what services are seeing. There are children behind every single one of the statistics. It’s important to remember too that a 17-year-old is also still a child. They may look and sound more mature, but they are still a child, both in the eyes of the law and according to our values as a society. But the criminal justice system doesn’t always see this. Many young people involved in youth violence have been exploited and groomed - they aren’t simply ‘perpetrators’ who have committed a criminal act. They are also 6
victims of exploitation and these children need our help and our protection. The National Youth Agency report “Hidden in Plain Sight” highlighted that gangs have been running recruitment drives of vulnerable children, especially girls, because they are less likely to be stopped by the police. And we know that young people were coerced into dressing as key workers during lockdown so that they could move around freely with a supply of drugs. The threat to young people is ever changing and we all need to remain vigilant to keep children and young people safe. At the APPG on Knife Crime and Violence Reduction, we have heard from frontline workers and experts about measures that the UK Government can take to help tackle this epidemic. And we must acknowledge that it is an epidemic—children are dying and many more feel unsafe and traumatised in their everyday lives. We cannot continue to put this in the “too difficult” box to solve, as unfortunately we have done for many years. One relatively simple step that the APPG on Knife Crime and Violence Reduction is calling for, and believes would go some way to protecting young people, is to create a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. There is currently no overarching statutory definition which has meant that there is no one consistent agency response to safeguarding children www.FightingKnifeCrime.London
