knife crime

There has been quite a bit on the news recently about crimes involving knives. including the nationwide knife amnesty, an eye catching initiative in the New Labour style. And completely useless, which even the police admitted after the most recent stabbing

"[The amnesty] was a waste of time because at the end of the day if you want to stab someone you only have to go into a kitchen and get a knife out of the drawer."

There is a reason for the increasing number of people arming themselves with knives, it is very simple and illustrated by Wat Tyler.

# Serious wounding- offences have quadrupled since 1980, but conviction rate has slumped from 30% to less than 10%
# Robbery- offences have quadrupled since 1980, but conviction rate has slumped from 23% to 9%

Kinfe carriers are afraid of being attacked, and know full well that if they are they are on their own there will be no police around to protect them.

I hate saying this but 50 years ago if you saw a bunch of kids openly walking around with knives then you would probably not feel any fear of them, as they would probably have been the local Boy Scouts. Today they certainly wouldn't be in any organised group to stop them getting bored, and will probably be carrying for their own protection, a few might even be out to hurt you. Either way there is nothing that will protect you except for arming yourself, and hence the cycle grows.

The solution is simple, and it isn't tough sentences or banning knives. Simply get more police onto the streets so that people don't feel that the only thing protecting them is them and whatever they are carrying. Unless we get the police to do their job and protect us then people will protect themselves, and that will mean getting increasingly tooled up. However where the police doing what they where founded to do and protecting the public then there would be no need to carry a knife or any other kind of weapon.