Knife strife

Chima Osuji. Tyler McDermott. Renell Charles. Khaled Saleh. Victor Lee. Leonardo Reid. Rahaan Ahmed Amin. Claudyo Jauad Lafayette. Stefan Valentine Balaban. Yusuf Mohamoud. Ania Omar Zen. Max Moy Wheatley. Elianne Andam.

All of these names belong to teenagers who were murdered in knife attacks in London this year alone. Many of them, like Elianne Andam, were just making their way to or from school, running errands or meeting up with friends.

On Wednesday morning, schoolgirl Elianne Andam was fatally stabbed on her commute to school in Croydon, nicknamed "London's knife crime capital". The 15-year-old, described as "bright and funny with many friends who all adored her", is thought to have died defending her friend from unwanted advances from a 17-year-old boy, who then stabbed her.

It signals an even broader tragedy of which Elianne is only the most recent victim. Knife crime has spiked by more than 34% in the last decade in England and Wales. Police recorded around 125 knife-related crimes every day in 2022. And the problem is particularly prevalent amongst British youth: around 4% of young people in England and Wales are estimated to carry a weapon one or more times each year. 

It is being described as a "public health crisis" which policy-makers scramble to find solutions for. Some think it is time to crack down harder on carrying knives, particularly among young people.

In 1996, a local shopkeeper walked into a Scottish primary school and killed 16 children between the ages of five and six as well as their teacher. The tragedy rocked Britain to the core, leading to swift and successful gun reform, including a ban on private ownership of handguns and a semi-automatic weapons ban.

This followed a consistent rise in gun homicides in the United Kingdom, from just 26 in 1969 to 84 in 1996. By comparison, in the year to March 2022, 282 homicides were committed using a knife or sharp instrument - the highest annual total since records began in 1946. Some argue that this means that tougher laws and punishments may be the most effective policy.

Others point out that high levels of street violence have been continually linked to socioeconomic deprivation and social tensions. Gang violence reached highs in Britain after the industrial revolutionA period of sudden, rapid industrialisation that transforms a country from an agricultural to an industrial economy., when millions of working class people were forced to move from the countryside to urban slums. Many think that the recent spike in knife crime may be similarly linked to economic uncertainty.

Furthermore, street violence researchers have found that incidences of street violence are highest in areas where affluent and poorer communities live side-by-side. Many think that this suggests that violence increases as the economic inequality between rich and poor widens.

Others think that it is attitudes that we need to crack down on, not weapons, citing Elianne's death as an example of a misogynistic crime by a boy who would not take "no" for an answer. Meanwhile, research has shown that Black people are four times as likely to be murdered as White people, especially by stabbing.

Yes: We should be focusing on preventing young people from being able to carry knives. We need more stop and search, more monitoring and communication from educators and more policing.

No: It is clear that stopping people from carrying knives is not the most effective solution - and moreover, it will be almost impossible to actually regulate. We should invest money in community spaces, educational groups and social workers.

Or... If knife crime rises in regions of high socioeconomic insecurity and inequality, then we need to be doing more to ensure that inequality can be narrowed and everybody has equal access to opportunities.