A joined-up violence prevention programme is the surest way to stop lives being lost and ruined
New figures from the Office for National Statistics showing a record number of knife offences committed in England and Wales in the 12 months ending in March this year are a distressing indicator of the levels of extreme violence and threat to which some people, and particularly young people in poorer urban areas, are exposed. There were 46,265 offences, 34% of them in London, with a 28% increase on the previous year in the number of fatal stabbings. While many forms of crime fell during lockdown, following an overall fall of 9% in offending over the past year, police and others have voiced fears that violence could rise sharply as the rules ease, drug-dealing gangs attempt to reassert themselves and the financial outlook for millions of people dramatically worsens.
Last week’s killing of a teenager, Ahmed Yasin-Ali, in a west London street was a bleak reminder of the disproportionate toll that knife crime takes on young people. Data from the NHS on hospital admissions showed an 8% increase in knife injuries last year, with doctors saying the victims were getting younger and the injuries more severe. While the latest jump in stabbings is disturbing, the trend is not new: knife offences have been rising since the middle of the decade, having fallen for several years before that (an earlier high point was reached in 2006/07, although comparable crime survey data was not then collected by the ONS).
Continue reading...* This article was originally published here
No comments:
Post a Comment