Causes of knife crime
Most knife crime happens in big cities. The worst areas are London, the West Midlands and Manchester. Most of these knife crimes were either violent assaults or robberies.
Sentencing statistics from the Ministry of Justice show that in the year ending March 2022, there were 19,555 disposals given for possession of a knife or offensive weapon. Juveniles (aged 10–17) were the offenders in 18% of cases. This means that over 80% of offences were committed by people over the age of 18 years.
Statistically, young males aged between 14 and 24 are the most at risk, and 1 in 5 16-year-olds admitted to carrying a knife.
It is generally assumed that knife crime only affects young people connected with gangs. This is a myth; knife crime can affect anyone. Innocent bystanders often get caught up in other people’s disputes and can suffer trauma, serious injury or death.
Children and young people involved in carrying knives are often victims too, whether this is of violence, exploitation and coercion by gangs, peer pressure and influence, or their social or economic background.
People might carry a knife or become involved in crime for many different reasons, and there isn’t one specific thing or issue that is solely responsible. This is why anyone can be at risk, whether as a perpetrator, as a victim or both.
There is some evidence that the following factors may be associated with an increased risk of violence and/or weapon carrying. Knife crime is often linked to individual risk factors such as:
- Gender
- Age
- Ethnicity
- Financial deprivation
- Socio-economic background
- Exposure to violence
- Prior victimisation
- Mental illness
- Drug addiction and/or substance abuse
- Low educational attainment
- Exclusion from mainstream education
- Family background
- Parental criminality
- Being taken into care
- Adverse childhood experiences
- Lack of accessible alternative activities
- Gang involvement and territoriality
- Deprivation, and violence
The increase in street gangs – a gang is legally defined as a group of people who spend time together and engage in crime. For vulnerable young people, there can be intense pressure to join and, once in, it can be difficult to leave. Research shows that gang members are more likely to carry knives. Young people join gangs for a variety of reasons; these include:
- Wanting respect
- To gain a sense of belonging
- Peer pressure
- Needing protection
- Making money from crime
Young people living in poverty are more likely to join gangs; in areas where gangs are prevalent, gang membership can be an inevitability rather than a choice. Gang members are often involved in so-called ‘turf/postcode wars’ and gang rivalry involving knives.
These criminals target children and young people with a mixture of financial rewards and threats, often finding recruits outside schools or the pupil referral units to which they have been sent after being excluded from mainstream schools.
In a drug network it is an expectation to be armed. Fear or be feared. The destabilising influence of the county lines system has helped to drive fatal stabbings to the highest levels since records began.
Austerity measures, poverty and deprivation – these issues have led to an increase in crime across particularly urban areas in England and Wales, and an increase in new offenders. Areas hardest hit fall into three broad categories:
- Older, industrial areas of England and Wales
- Seaside towns
- London boroughs
Research indicates that austerity has led to a 3.7% increase in total crime, with an increase in violent crime including knife crime of 4.8%. Young people, especially teenagers who are not privileged enough to be involved in extracurricular activities, have very few social options outside of the school provision. Youth centres and clubs have disappeared, and teenagers have nowhere safe to go so often congregate on the streets, and are at risk of youth violence. As seen previously, young people living in poverty are more likely to join gangs.
Mental health – poor mental health and drug and/or substance abuse can all have an association with violent and aggressive behaviour and can lead a person to become involved in knife crime.
Many of the young people involved in knife crime have frequently experienced many Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). ACEs include domestic abuse, emotional and physical abuse and neglect, bullying, parental separation, and family substance misuse. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can have a tremendous impact on mental health and future violence victimisation and perpetration.
Mental health issues such as anxiety, low self-esteem and depression can all contribute to a young person being involved in knife crime.
Alcohol and drug abuse are major risk factors for knife crime and violent offending, and increase the level of both violence and vandalism.
Home environment – research has found for over 40 years that young people who are convicted of violent assault including knife crime are more likely to have experienced poor parenting, characterised by harsh or erratic parental discipline, neglectful parental attitudes, parental conflicts and lax supervision in their childhood.
Family breakdown, public care background, having friends/siblings in trouble with the police, truancy from school and school exclusion can also be contributing factors to committing an offence among 10- to 25-year-olds. 54% of children and young people who play truant or are excluded from school are found to have carried a knife and a further 7% carried another type of weapon.
Reduction of police presence – there may be a correlation between a reduction of a visible police presence on the streets and an increase in crimes, such as homicide and offences involving knives or sharp instruments. This appears to be borne out by evidence such as when Essex Police undertook foot patrols for 15 minutes in ‘hot spots’ areas, they saw a reduction in violent crime of 74% on days when patrols took place.
The use of stop and search by the police continues to attract controversy over its effectiveness and its disproportionate impact on the Black and Ethnic Minority communities. However, some commentators have suggested that it might have a deterrent effect on crime, particularly on the carrying of knives.
If you are concerned about a young person being involved with or vulnerable to becoming involved in knife crime, then knowing what to look for, such as potential warning signs, can help to prevent knife crime.
Subtle changes in their behaviour could be an indicator that they may be being groomed and manipulated into doing things they wouldn’t normally do, such as helping to sell drugs, carrying weapons or stealing, for example. Any of these activities might put a young person at risk of knife crime.
Many of these signs might just be down to typical teenage challenges and part of growing up, exam pressure, teenage relationships or other stressful issues. But they could also be signs that a young person is being groomed or used by criminals or gangs.
Look for any of the following:
- Are they being secretive about where they are, what they are doing, who they are seeing?
- Will they let you look in their bags or pockets?
- Will they let you look at their phone? Are they secretive about who is calling or messaging? Do they have multiple mobile phones?
- Are they coming home with items they can’t afford, or they are unwilling to explain where they got them – such as phones, expensive trainers or clothes?
- Are they going missing for periods of time or playing truant from school?
- Have they stopped engaging with teachers or going to school or perhaps they aren’t doing as well?
- Have they stopped doing after-school activities or going to clubs they used to like?
- Are they scared to go out or perhaps reticent to go to certain places?
- Have they started to hang around with different or older people, have an older boyfriend or girlfriend and perhaps aren’t seeing their existing friends as much?
- Do they seem scared, quiet or angry a lot more than they used to?
- Do they have marks or injuries that they seem very secretive about?
For signs that a young person may be carrying a knife, look for any of the following:
- Has their attitude to school or education changed? For example, they really don’t want to go to school, they are not doing as well as normal, they talk about school less, they stop going to clubs etc.
- Are they talking about or have new friends you’ve not heard of or met before?
- Are they protective and/or secretive with their bag and/or clothing?
- Are they more reserved, quieter or withdrawn than normal, or are they more clingy towards you than normal?
- Have they been overly defensive when you’ve questioned them about their possessions?
- Do they send and receive more messages than they did before?
- Do they ever get up and leave the house abruptly?
- Are they more secretive about where they are going or have been than before?
- Are they out of the house more, particularly in the evenings and at night?
- Has their attitude changed about carrying knives/weapons? For example, justifying it by saying people carry them for self-defence?
- Have any items gone missing from the kitchen, toolbox or garage?
- Have you found a weapon hidden amongst their possessions?
Research continues to determine the root causes of why young people are carrying knives to inform the work needed to tackle the issue and reduce the risks posed. Although not exhaustive, below are some common factors known to influence young people to carry knives:
- Victim of bullying and/or fear of crime – the biggest concern and risk is that if a young person carries a knife for self-protection, the ‘just in case’ reason, they will almost definitely use it in situations where they feel the need to protect themselves.
- Peer pressure – there is a perception that most young people carry knives, so young people may feel that they need to too, or they are being pressured into carrying for someone else.
- Gang affiliation and/or county lines – young people feel the need for protection and/or carry a knife as a sign of their status, to gain respect. They also carry a knife to intimidate or harass others, or to commit other crimes such as theft.
- Media attention or glamorisation – some reporting on knife crime can have the effect of glamorising violence, meaning that some young people view knife carrying as a ‘fashion accessory’, often posting images on social media for validation.
Social media, grime artists and other popular culture figures on social media can make it look like carrying a knife gives a young person a good image, that carrying a knife can be a ‘status thing’ where social media is used to broadcast the fact that a young person owns or is carrying a knife. Social media and popular culture not only normalise knife carrying and violence but, in some instances, promote and glamorise it. Young people with no previous or very limited criminal records can become killers by being ‘radicalised’ in a matter of days.
In addition, the police displaying images of seized weapons also glamorises knife crime and can encourage those living in areas where such incidents are prevalent to arm themselves.
Social media is regularly used to goad, or to make insults or threats online. Rival gangs have been known to post mocking videos on YouTube, for example, often resulting in violent clashes in person.
People are also using social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat to purchase banned knives and other weapons disguised as everyday items.
NACRO, a national social justice charity, reported that lots of people – politicians, the police, journalists – have a view about the causes of the increase in knife crime and what to do about it. However, they were concerned that young people who might be most at risk did not have a voice in the debate.
In their publication Lives Not Knives, they spoke to 42 learners in their Education and Skills Centres, aged 15 to 19.
Here are some of those views in brief:
- Most knew of at least one person in their family, friendship group or local community who had been a victim of knife crime, and some had been victims themselves.
- Young people carry knives for a number of reasons: fear is the major driving factor, but people also carry knives to gain/maintain status, as a consequence of drug dealing and involvement in gangs.
- Harsher penalties would not stop people from carrying knives. There was little knowledge about the level of punishment for knife crimes, and fear and self-preservation were seen as more important.
- They felt that the police did not protect them.
- Knife crime is a problem that cannot be solved in isolation; action needs to focus on poverty and lack of opportunity too.
- There were mixed views as to the effectiveness of increased stop and search.
- All of the groups reported that it was very easy to buy knives and that more action should be taken to prevent knife sales to children.
- All of the participants in the focus groups were clear that the amount of knife crime in their local area had significantly increased in the last few years. They were also clear that young people were more likely to carry knives and commit knife crime than previously, but that it was not just young people who were involved.
The views as to why young people were carrying knives varied to some extent from group to group:
- “Eat or be eaten”: All of the focus groups said that fear was a motivating factor, but to different extents. Fear was the first response to the question as to why people were carrying knives from one group. They said that if people were carrying knives out of fear then the risks of being caught with a knife by the police, or the threat of harsher punishments, would not work to discourage them from carrying knives.
- “They think they’re the big man”: One group felt that the primary motive was to gain status among friends and rivals.
- They also believed that it was related to gangs, and that in recent years there had been a migration of gang members from London and other cities.
Why young people were carrying knives:
- County lines drug trafficking was also said to be a cause in two of the groups, but views on this were more mixed elsewhere. Some told them that younger children are asked to commit crimes (such as selling drugs) in return for payment. They felt that this was particularly the case for vulnerable children who were isolated or had no positive role models, who are then targeted with promises of love and friendship. The “elders” in gangs protect themselves from getting arrested by getting the “youngers” to do their dirty work.
- They told them that lots of people carry knives to protect themselves when they are carrying or dealing drugs.
- Postcode rivalry was no longer seen to be a motivating factor in one group, but this was still thought to be a significant factor in other locations.
What the young people said about the following possible solutions:
- Some thought the police should stop and search everyone and that the current operation of stop and search meant that it was used in a discriminatory fashion, based on stereotypes. Others thought that stop and search caused antagonism between young people and the police, and that stop and search would not stop people from carrying knives.
- None of the focus groups said they would ever report an incident to the police. There is a clear need for a focus on improving relationships between police and young people in some areas.
- Most participants knew very little about what the penalties were for weapon offences, although one participant was clear that in their area if the police caught someone with a knife, they would simply take it off them and not take it any further (not even a caution).
- The participants thought that training in first aid and what to do if someone was stabbed would be helpful. They also thought ‘bleeding control kits’ were a good idea, such as those supplied by the Daniel Baird Foundation.
- The increase in knife and other violent crimes has not changed their behaviour. They said they would not be scared into acting differently, but did think that others might start carrying knives because they were scared.
- There were differences across the focus groups as to where they thought people were getting knives from. One group immediately said from home, but others said people get them from shops or online. They knew that legally you have to be 18 to buy a knife, but said that many shopkeepers do not worry about checking ID if someone looks old enough. They thought that it should be made more difficult to buy knives, and the law should ensure that shopkeepers are effectively prevented from selling knives to children.
- Knife bins/knife amnesties. Some thought these were of limited value because knives were so easy to get hold of that people could just get another knife. One group discussed a scheme in London run by a father who swapped knives for JD Sports vouchers and thought this was a really good idea that might be successful. They said the man doing this could talk to the young people about his personal experiences, and they thought this could be very powerful for young people.