The curse of knife crime breaks into 2018

“And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
For auld lang syne.”

So, ends the song that traditionally heralds in the New Year. For many New Year’s Eve symbolises closing the door of a tired and spent old year while opening the door to a new year. A new year where better things are possible; a new year full of the promises that the old failed to deliver.

Yet, within the first three hours of the new year the police were called out to the Crystal Bar in Sheffield responding to a reported brawl at a Great Gatsby-themed New Year’s event. The brawl left five people with stab or slash knife wounds. Two of the men remain in hospital in a critical condition.

The news from London is even more depressing. Four young men ranging from 17 to 20 years old were killed in Norwood, Enfield, Old Street and West Ham on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Another man in his early 20s remains in hospital with critical wounds inflicted by a knife during the incident in Old Street.

Families, relations and friends of the dead and injured will begin this new year in a less hopeful way to the rest of us. Mothers and fathers will learn that their sons have been violently snatched from them. No happiness there.

But how do we as a society put an end to this scourge of violent knife crime? How do we stop young men killing other young men? How do we put an end to police officers knocking at the doors of families to inform them that their son has been stabbed to death because he was in the wrong place; or that he’d unwittingly disrespected another young man; or for any of a myriad of misplaced street faux pas.

Youngsters tell us they go out armed for self-protection. Protection from whom? Well, it’s protection from that other bloke who goes out tooled-up in order to ensure he’s protected from the other knife-carrying young man who himself argues that he is carrying in order to protect himself…

And so, this self-perpetuating defence is carried to the grave of one and into a prison cell for another. Mothers and fathers grieve, as a vacuum in their lives is created; while siblings stare into the space once occupied by their brother and wonder when will it end?

The killer sits in his prison cell trying to make sense of the tangled mess of his actions; questioning the unwritten code of the streets that make such demands of young men. Systems and procedures that call upon young men to prove themselves through violence in protecting territory, territory they don’t own, and by upholding respect codes of conduct they haven’t earned.

Young men, throw away your knives; dispel the idea that other young men, like you, are somehow your enemies. Instead look upon other youngsters who are also struggling to live in decent housing, get a decent education and find meaningful employment as your allies. Look upon poor people and those who live around you as your class peers.