“Young people are dying on London’s streets, but we’re still unwilling to look knife crime in the face”

A 19-year-old boy was killed in the early hours of Thursday, July 11. Stabbed to death shortly before 3am in the ‘nice part’ of Finsbury Park. The neighbors told me the next morning that they didn’t hear anything. His name was Ahmed Habib.

Just days before, on July 8, three men were stabbed during a brawl at a north London nightclub in Chingford, where around 400 people were in attendance expecting a normal Sunday night . Earlier on Sunday, a man was stabbed on Clapham Common as the London Air Ambulance rushed to the scene.

Josh McKay. Robert Robinson. Kamari Johnson. Anita Mukhei. Jack Hague.

READ MORE: 11 men stabbed in London in just 6 days and one victim dead in knife crime spree

All these people have been stabbed and killed in London in the last two months alone. Knife crime takes lives – often young ones. And it happens almost every day in the capital of Great Britain.

“Our family’s heart has stopped beating”

According to the latest ONS data, knife crime is up 20% in 2023 compared to the previous year. There were 14,626 recorded incidents of knife crime in London.

But the impact of knife crime is felt very deeply by those who know and love the victims. The family of 33-year-old father-of-two Josh McKay, who was stabbed to death on Lea Bridge Road, said: “Our family’s heart has stopped beating. The world is less bright without his beautiful smile.”

However, it seems to have become so commonplace now that many people now turn a blind eye to what happens on our streets every day.

I have been a reporter for three years, covering local news first in Essex and now in London. We defend ourselves at the police cordons and take a few photos of the forensics tents set up and maybe the forensics in their blue scrubs. We talk to residents on nearby roads, asking them about the area and if they witnessed anything.

We try to report what happened in as much detail as we can, partly to inform our readers and those who live nearby about what happened and to help the police bring the attacker(s) to justice. But we also report on these incidents to create a record so that a horrific crime does not go unnoticed or forgotten.

However, the volume of knife crime taking place in the city has a serious knock-on effect. People stopped caring, or at least stopped looking into what was going on in London. It’s something I know I’m still guilty of, even as I continue to report from the streets and lanes and alleys of London.

Maybe that’s what makes the topic of knife crime such an overwhelming and seemingly impossible problem that makes us want to look away and click on something else. How can we hope to solve something that requires so many things to be brought together and improved, all at the same time?

“One Word: Fear”

When we cover stabbings in London, we sometimes find that there is an element of revenge to them – brothers, friends stabbed and sometimes killed and so on. In court, I listened to young defendants explain to a judge that they were almost killed in a fight, so now they have to carry a knife to feel safe in London.

We spoke to Ciaran Thapar, Director of Public Affairs & Communication at the Youth Endowment Fund and author of Cut Short: Youth, Violence and Loss in the City, to find out more about why young people carry knives. “I think there are a lot of reasons.

“But the main thing, if you take one word, is fear. If you don’t feel safe, maybe you don’t feel safe at home, or in public space in your area, if you don’t trust the police to protect you, there are potential reasons why you don’t love school, you’re young and impressionable, and you have a hyperawareness that other people are or have been stabbed in your area, in your city, in you. can make those connections between circumstances and a young mind deciding to carry a knife.”

There is also a sense that few truly understand the consequences of carrying a knife and the impact of taking a life – once they’re gone, they can’t come back. Ciaran said he could not speak for young people in these situations, but said: “There are probably pretty good reasons to assume that a lot of people who have carried and used knives don’t really think about what they’re doing. .

He added that young people living in communities where there are large amounts of violence can easily become involved in it, either in real life or on social media. “People make quick, irrational decisions to try to make it to the end of the day, the end of the week.

“If you’re a kid and you think your life doesn’t matter and you’re caught up in these ways of thinking, maybe influenced by a gang, feeling alone – I think a lot of young people in that position don’t even think about the future. It’s grim, but that’s the reality of decision-making.

Solutions

So we end up with a catch-22 – knife crime is on the rise, more people are being injured or even killed, and yet more people seem to be turning away from the problem. But the way to approach the problem is to look directly at it and the lives it takes.

One way to start looking more closely at knife crime is to look at what solutions have been proposed and implemented in recent years. The MyEnds program was established in 2021 to bring local people together to help tackle violence in their area of ​​London.

The scheme provides after school and youth activities to prevent young people from getting caught up in criminal activity. In late 2023, two years into the MyEnds program, a report found evidence that it was creating stronger networks, which was creating a “foundation for violence reduction efforts.”

It is still in its infancy, the report suggests, and adds that reducing violence – the goal of MyEnds – is not expected within the program’s three-year span. But Mayor of London Sadiq Khan pledged a further £7.8m to the initiative after being re-elected in May, which will expand MyEnds to three more London boroughs.

Another initiative is led by actor Idris Elba, who is calling on the government to ban knives and zombie machetes in his Don’t Stop Your Future campaign, as well as more funding for youth services. Elba highlighted the need for a “joined-up” approach, telling the Press Association: “We’ve kind of been thinking around knife crime and youth culture.

“We have to think as a group. We have to think as a united team. So communities need to talk to schools (to) education, education needs to talk to health care. Medical assistance must speak to the police.

“These are all common conversations that need to happen, and governments just need to support that. It also needs to pay attention to what the youth culture needs. Young people are ignored, and the result, we can see, is an increase in violence and all kinds of fragmented behavior.”

These are both longer-term projects that aim to tackle the causes of knife crime, rather than the symptom, the stabbings themselves. As Elba says, these causes often stem from a lack of support for young people, something MyEnds tries to improve through its after-school activities.

A new government may also help reduce knife crime in the capital, as Khan will now work with his own governing party. Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to stop zombie knife orders by mail during the election campaign three weeks ago as he met with Elba and the families of people who have been killed with knives in London.

Looking at the numbers, it seems more needs to be done – but more It is being carried out, some at deep levels that try to address the roots of what causes knife crime in the first place. There are several charities doing important work in preventing knife crime in London and their impact will be much wider than the hard statistics suggest.

It may remain to be seen whether a new government will see knife crime rates fall – not just in London, but also in the West Midlands and Cleveland, where the highest rates of hospital admissions for stabbings were recorded by the NHS. Long-term projects, which work to address the cause rather than the symptom, will have had more time to take root in London’s communities.

But in the meantime, we must look straight at knife crime and all its horrors. Because those who have died deserve to be seen and remembered, and their families should not have to grieve alone.

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