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Children…0-14 year olds in the UK take up 17.5% of our society. They are our future. They will soon be the adults in our parliament, the drivers in our buses, the police force of our country and one of them will one day be the Prime minister. This is a fact. Another fact is that in the past year 13% of these children have carried a knife with them to social activities, school or in public. So why do children carry knives?
Street cred, a buzz, respect, fear: these are just some of the reasons identified by young people for carrying knives. However, these reasons do not justify why they feel the need to carry such a lethal object. Children are ignorant to the damage a knife can do; they seem to imagine somehow that having a knife is not going to cause the same damage that would be caused if they were shooting at somebody.
Why have knives become an issue? There have been a number of recent incidents in which children have been attacked with knives. In May 2006, 15-year-old schoolboy Kiyan Prince was stabbed and killed outside his school in London. A few days later, another boy, aged 14, was hurt in a stabbing incident in Birmingham. In 2003, 14-year-old Luke Walmsley was fatally stabbed at his secondary school. Sixteen-year-old Alan Pennell was convicted of Luke's murder and was given a life sentence. Research suggests that children as young as 10 are carrying knives and a third of under 16s regularly carry a knife. Scottish police say there are almost four times as many stabbings in Glasgow than in any other part of the UK. And half of knife crimes there are committed by people under the age of 21.
David Wilson is professor of criminology at the University of Central England. He has spent five years investigating why children carry knives. During an interview with Lizo for Newsround he said “I think there are two groups of reasons. Firstly there are defensive reasons why children would carry knives. In other words, they feel they are going to be bullied, they feel they are going to be attacked. Crucially, they don't feel they get protection from the adult world when they face those threats. However I think there's a second group of reasons which relate to the fact that simply by carrying a knife in their hand or in their pocket they get, very quickly, a great deal of respect from their peers.
Kids will often get into more trouble when they have a knife because they have too much confidence; they feel that can deal with the threats themselves. Whereas in fact all that this means is that they are likely to get into further trouble. What the adult world has got to be able to do is convince young people that the solution to their problems is not in carrying knives. The evidence seems to suggest from all kinds of different sources that children as young as 10 are carrying knives. And that is quite a frightening statistic when you think about it, because that takes the problem not into our secondary schools, but into our primary schools.”
So now with an expert's opinion on the matter we can have identified at least two reasons why a child would carry a knife. Mr. Wilson's first explanation was “defensive” .We've all heard of stories about bullying, how bad it can be and how the victim goes through hell, but would this lead to the need for them to carry a knife? In addition, Mr. Wilson refers to being attacked, is our society such a dangerous place that a ten year old feels he needs to carry a knife in order to get home safe? The second explanation Mr. Wilson contributed was “simply by carrying a knife in their hand or in their pocket they get, very quickly, a great deal of respect from their peers.” So in order to be “cool” in today's modern world a child has to carry a lethal object around. Quite simply, in my opinion these are not excuses for a child to even think about carrying an object that could snatch a life in just a few seconds.
Inspector Tom Halbert works in the Violent Crime Reduction Unit in Glasgow. He also had an interview with Newsround and told of the problems he has encountered. "There is a problem in Glasgow with the carrying of knives. So far, it's my experience that when young people come to your attention for carrying knives, it would tend to be teenagers, kids from 12 years upwards. In the main, young people will carry knives that they know are quite easily hidden. Some use the excuse that they are carrying it out of fear, but the truth of the matter is a knife is not a defensive weapon. It's an attacking weapon. It's there to inflict injury and harm. If there's any young person out there anywhere in the UK who is carrying a knife or thinking about carrying a knife, my message is simple: don't do it. It's a mug's game. You'll cause yourself serious harm, and your family serious harm." However, children in our society do not seem to realise this
Street cred, a buzz, respect, fear: these are just some of the reasons identified by young people for carrying knives. However, these reasons do not justify why they feel the need to carry such a lethal object. Children are ignorant to the damage a knife can do; they seem to imagine somehow that having a knife is not going to cause the same damage that would be caused if they were shooting at somebody.
Why have knives become an issue? There have been a number of recent incidents in which children have been attacked with knives. In May 2006, 15-year-old schoolboy Kiyan Prince was stabbed and killed outside his school in London. A few days later, another boy, aged 14, was hurt in a stabbing incident in Birmingham. In 2003, 14-year-old Luke Walmsley was fatally stabbed at his secondary school. Sixteen-year-old Alan Pennell was convicted of Luke's murder and was given a life sentence. Research suggests that children as young as 10 are carrying knives and a third of under 16s regularly carry a knife. Scottish police say there are almost four times as many stabbings in Glasgow than in any other part of the UK. And half of knife crimes there are committed by people under the age of 21.
David Wilson is professor of criminology at the University of Central England. He has spent five years investigating why children carry knives. During an interview with Lizo for Newsround he said “I think there are two groups of reasons. Firstly there are defensive reasons why children would carry knives. In other words, they feel they are going to be bullied, they feel they are going to be attacked. Crucially, they don't feel they get protection from the adult world when they face those threats. However I think there's a second group of reasons which relate to the fact that simply by carrying a knife in their hand or in their pocket they get, very quickly, a great deal of respect from their peers.
Kids will often get into more trouble when they have a knife because they have too much confidence; they feel that can deal with the threats themselves. Whereas in fact all that this means is that they are likely to get into further trouble. What the adult world has got to be able to do is convince young people that the solution to their problems is not in carrying knives. The evidence seems to suggest from all kinds of different sources that children as young as 10 are carrying knives. And that is quite a frightening statistic when you think about it, because that takes the problem not into our secondary schools, but into our primary schools.”
So now with an expert's opinion on the matter we can have identified at least two reasons why a child would carry a knife. Mr. Wilson's first explanation was “defensive” .We've all heard of stories about bullying, how bad it can be and how the victim goes through hell, but would this lead to the need for them to carry a knife? In addition, Mr. Wilson refers to being attacked, is our society such a dangerous place that a ten year old feels he needs to carry a knife in order to get home safe? The second explanation Mr. Wilson contributed was “simply by carrying a knife in their hand or in their pocket they get, very quickly, a great deal of respect from their peers.” So in order to be “cool” in today's modern world a child has to carry a lethal object around. Quite simply, in my opinion these are not excuses for a child to even think about carrying an object that could snatch a life in just a few seconds.
Inspector Tom Halbert works in the Violent Crime Reduction Unit in Glasgow. He also had an interview with Newsround and told of the problems he has encountered. "There is a problem in Glasgow with the carrying of knives. So far, it's my experience that when young people come to your attention for carrying knives, it would tend to be teenagers, kids from 12 years upwards. In the main, young people will carry knives that they know are quite easily hidden. Some use the excuse that they are carrying it out of fear, but the truth of the matter is a knife is not a defensive weapon. It's an attacking weapon. It's there to inflict injury and harm. If there's any young person out there anywhere in the UK who is carrying a knife or thinking about carrying a knife, my message is simple: don't do it. It's a mug's game. You'll cause yourself serious harm, and your family serious harm." However, children in our society do not seem to realise this
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