Why Do Children Feel the Need to Carry a Knife in the 21st Century
An essay I done a while ago,hope you like it.
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.
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Post Commentjohn barnes
On May 20, 2008 at 5:31 pm
very very good you sexy devil lol
anonymous
On September 12, 2008 at 11:25 am
i completely agree with you,nice article.
Ernie
On October 9, 2008 at 10:12 pm
I strongly disagree i would carry one because i have to walk around on the streets to get to places. i would not feel confident when carrying a knife i simply understand that if worse comes to worse and i try to run from lets say a mugger and he catches me i cannot defend with my fists cause im not the strongest person out there i fully understand the responsibilities of carrying a lethal weapon and i believe your article is based on the belief that kids in this generation are foolish. But im not gonna disagree at the fact many children are foolish and want to carry it to feel stronger or get respect but i for one am not. (: very interesting article glad you wrote it
TJ
On October 14, 2008 at 8:38 am
i really liked your essay, people don’t need to carry knives around with them, what happened to using pepper spray like the good old days???
RE: Ernie
On October 26, 2008 at 9:24 pm
so ernie you did read the part where he said that the knife can be used against you? Theres alot more safer options.a knife is not the answer!
RE:RE:ernie
On July 25, 2009 at 7:58 am
So what would you suggest something like a knife taht can be used against you would not anything you use to protect you can also be used to hurt you.
( except maybe a cup and bulletproof vest )
Jack
On August 21, 2009 at 9:32 pm
You make a number of points, but despite your intellectual tone, this is still a reactionary response. Children get into fights all the time, but is anyone teaching them defense, or proper respect for the blade? A knife isn’t a fashion accessory, it is a tool, it is a weapon, and it can be used for defense as well as offense. Granted, one can be disarmed, but any properly trained fighter would make a hard work of it. And by then, any mugger would lose heart if he had to fight for it. This “knife” problem isn’t the fault of the blade, or the children. It’s the fault of the adults, parents and teachers who aren’t giving them proper instruction in defense. There was a time when men of honor would prefer to settle their own affairs, with words and reason, and with a contest of skill secondly. Violence as a last resort. These children grow up in such a culture, where they must defend themselves to save face, but they lack the proper upbringing and assertiveness to asses the situations they’re faced with, and thus go straight to their blades. They have no one to teach them otherwise, and that’s where such tragedies arise. Teach them. That’s all it will take to prevent further violence. Teach them respect for their peers, themselves, and their blades. Maybe then they will forget their fears.
Red
On October 19, 2009 at 3:06 am
You know, you can stab someone with a sharpened pencil, should we ban pencils?
podtherod
On March 3, 2010 at 1:06 pm
first of all i am very thankful to all who read this and im glad you enjoyed it.
secondly i am grateful to those of you who took the time to comment… especially those with a well thought out and i would even go as far to say produce a well structured counter-argument!
You must remember though this was an essay i done a long time ago, i think the criteria was to produce an argument for a given issue, hence the complete one sidedness.
As far as my personal opinion on the matter i would agree that each situation and each person is different, some may carry a knife as a tool (e.g. for fishing) and others may carry it but know how to use it, but that still doesnt mean its right.
I think the government wastes too much money on stupid things like for example the campaign to allow knives and guns to be handed in to the police without punishment.yes this may have saved countless lives,may have steered people away from gang cultures but it may have onlt been a temporary solution. i am reminded of an old quote, “give a man a fish he will eat for a day, teach a man how to fish and he will never go hungry”.
maybe a more permanent solution would have been for the goernment to invest their money into self defence courses.
thank-you again for reading,and please leave a comment
Neill Johnston
On March 9, 2010 at 3:24 am
A lot of kids these days, carry knives for safety purposes, to protect themselves. Today’s society is not as safe as it used to be, during the earlier years, when we were their age.It is a totally different society today, then it was many years ago for us.
And especially with ALL these youth gangs, is another cause for these young kids to carry knives with them. Also, these kids are getting killed at a younger age, then us adults are.
Ariel
On March 19, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Knives are only the single most useful tool man has devised and have thousands of uses. Why WOULDN’T someone, responsible minor or otherwise, want to carry one? They are an amzingly useful item.
It’s incredible how idiotic some Brits sound these days. I’m surprised you can even take care of yourselves.
podtherod
On October 23, 2010 at 10:55 pm
RE;Ariel
Yes no-one is doubting how useful they are but we live in a civilised country and on a day-to-day basis (unless you are Bear Grylls or Ray Mears) a knife is not necessary in your pocket. Most people commenting on this have provided an argument but instead you insult, very mature of you mate,do you carry a knife on a daily basis?
I wrote this article about 3 years ago now, has anyones view changed in that time?Have the laws changed?Has the government done anything in this time? One thing I notice is the age at which serious crimes are being committed (on occasion) can be even younger than before.
One fact is people still search about children carrying knives, 5000 people have viewed this article,wether it be worried parents or children themselves, the issue hasn’t gone away…