How can our politicians understand blade culture?

guardian.co.uk ^ | July 14, 2008 | Rowenna Davis

[Free ThinkerNY]

New proposals to tackle knife crime demonstrate just how little ministers know about the context our kids are operating in.

Young people don't get involved with crime because they don't know the consequences; in many cases, it's precisely because they do know the consequences that they carry a blade.

When you know just how bad a stab wound can be, you want to keep a knife close to your chest to have some credible threat of self-defence against others. This has been recognised by the government's own newly appointed lead on knife crime, Alf Hitchcock, who has said that 85% of young people who carry blades do so because they fear for their personal safety.

Many of these young people would give up their knives if they knew everyone else would. But when that can't be guaranteed, which kid is going to be the first to volunteer to walk unarmed?

Many young people who carry knives don't just know about the consequences second-hand. A few weeks ago I met a girl in a hospital recovering from a stab wound. Before her bandages had even been taken off, she was telling me how she was going to "get back" the girl who attacked her. Our hospital doors are revolving as the same kids repeatedly come back with the same problems.

[BerryDingle]

And it's the right thing to do.

[Carry_Okie]

An old Twist on gruel.

[PeterFinn]

It’s stories like this that make it diffcult for me to acknowledge that the same United Kingdom once ruled nearly half the world. These pitiful wretches who inherited the mantle of Nelson can’t even rule their own country, let alone take charge for anyone else.