Pop star, Lily Allen recently blogged, “Please can everyone stop stabbing each other in the UK , it’s really sad , my thoughts are with all the families affected by these heinious crimes . we need to have a knife amnesty , we should put on a big concert to raise awareness and stop the violence , Boris, if your listening , call me man.”
It would appear that man, Boris Johnson was listening. Or at least his aides were.
Teaming up with a famous young Londoner like Lily is a very shrewd way for the new Mayor of London to position himself as a proactive crime fighter committed to reducing the levels of knife crime in the City. That said I very much doubt that a photoshoot with Lily and a brainstorming session will make a massive difference. Kids won’t stop carrying knives because Lily says so. Kids will stop carrying knives when they feel safe on the streets.
I think many knife holders are carrying knives to protect themselves rather than to commit crimes. So rather than a knife amnesty or a Knife Aid type concert I think working to publicise initiatives setup to lower the rates of crime and news that crime rates have dropped will have a bigger effect.
A good example of this is the news released today that the rate of recorded crime has nearly halved since 1995, and is 9% down on last year. However I doubt that will be on the front page of the newspapers tomorrow. Especially since the BBC has reported that another youth has been knifed to death tonight, and tomorrow is the day of Ben Kinsella’s funeral.
The media should cut down on sensationalist reporting of crime that just heightens people’s fears and focus on the facts, no matter how mundane they are. But sadly I think selling papers is more of a priority than saving lives. The BBC has an article reporting a similar idea here, and a nonsense article here claiming that Nike has shelved its Air Stab trainer because of fears it promotes knife crime. That shoe has nothing to do with knives – it’s a stability shoe!
