Don’t Knife Your Life: Knife Crime in the UK

by Nikita K in Crime, June 20, 2009

Stabbings – even though shocking – are a dreaded fear in every Londoner’s life. By what triggers knife crime? What is the significance of possessing a knife? Why do they want to take another’s life when they will never feel the pain?

But why carry a knife? Recently, I happened to read a beautiful novel for the first time – To Kill a Mockingbird. One of the things I picked up in it was when Atticus (the father character in the book) tells his children that having a gun is like an invitation for someone to shoot and I felt that it was very appropriate in my outrage against all knife crimes. Having a knife on you, indeed, is like an invitation for someone to stab you. But reading deeper in to it, I realised that having a knife on you in the first place is a sense of individual security and defence. Not being in a gang meant that protection was indeed very necessary at all times and to carry a knife on you means that you can defend yourself from whatever may befall you.

But was this all there was to it? Am I being made to believe that all these stabbings were just a small result of gangs, territories, boundaries and security from having a knife – something that escalates your position in the hierarchy of power? Then I hit the nail on the head; the stabbings, in London, are mainly considered as the idea of teenagers being young and cool. The sense of rebellion against social norms is quite strong in such areas where teenagers are just considered as some members of the population. Having a knife and being in the gang is power. It is a sense of achievement. A very sickly sense of achievement.

As I read the news of people getting stabbed, right from school dropouts to those students at the high academic end of their school, I just plead to those out there, who think that having a knife makes you just that bit cooler or powerful – they will never know what getting stabbed feels like until it happens to them. Nor will they share the sorrow that the loved ones of a person stabbed might. Please put away those knives, because there is nothing to gain from it. If a knife embodies power, it doesn’t really – it only makes you seem weaker in front of all of us. Don’t use a knife to even protect yourself or to intimidate someone else. That’s the only way you won’t knife your own life.