We are a little over 2 months into 2019 and there have already been 100 killings in the UK (as of 10th March). Of those fatalities, 41 were down to stabbings.
It is the largest single cause of homicides in the nation this year. One former Home Office minister said the government should be treating knife crime as a “national crisis” and with the same urgency as terrorism. MP Stella Creasy called for an “emergency response”, but the Home Secretary Sajid Javid responded that there is “no single solution” to tackling knife crime.
On Benji Hyer’s Sunday radio show, listeners provided many possible responses to the problem, ranging from harsher prison sentences, more police on the streets, increasing stop-and-search techniques, ending the sale of knives, or even calling in the army, as suggested by Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson.
One solution proposed by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is to stop schools being allowed to unofficially exclude pupils. Almost a quarter of children in England who said they had carried a knife have also been expelled or suspended from school. There is certainly a close correlation between school exclusions and knife crime in young people. As one goes up, the other goes up.
Almost a quarter of children in England who said they had carried a knife have been expelled or suspended from school.
Trainee teacher Josh Lewis called into Benji Hyer’s radio show to discuss the issue. He said that he was “sick and tired of journalists devaluing the work teachers to do make schools as inclusive as possible for all children” and that, very simply, “expulsion is not the cause of knife crime”.
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Listen to the full discussion from Benji Hyer's radio show on the 'Hyer's Highlights' podcast, here
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