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.

Children accused of committing a crime can be sent to court at the age of 10 in England and Wales – although some people say this is too young. It is known as the age of “criminal responsibility” – meaning the age when children should know right from wrong. Experts are calling for the age to increase from 10 to 14 in a report that says too many young children are going to court. However, this may send out the wrong message to young people. Children under 14 could now think that it is safer for them to carry knives, even if they are caught with a knife they will not be sent to court.

Luke Walmsley was stabbed to death in a fight with another pupil at his school two years ago. Luke’s father told The Sun newspaper “It doesn’t matter whether a knife is an inch, three inches or six inches long, it was one fatal stab wound that killed Luke. A knife can be used against you. You might have it for your own protection but you can draw it out on somebody, and that person could use that knife against you, and you could end up being the victim. Luke was only stabbed once in the chest and he died from his stab wound.”

I found a Trading Standards investigation on the web and it showed that children younger than 16 were able to purchase knives on the internet, using a bank card. But I also found that the law says a person under the age of 16 can’t be sold any knife, knife blade or razor blade; Any axe; Any other article which has a blade or which is sharply pointed or Anything which is made or adapted for use for causing injury to people.

I was at once against the law above when I read it and was pleased to find in my search that many people are calling for the Government to raise the age to 18. Some kinds of knives aren’t covered by this law. Knives, where the blade folds into the handle, like a Swiss Army knife, aren’t illegal as long as the blade is shorter than three inches. However, if anyone was to use a knife like this in a threatening way then it becomes an offensive weapon. Some types of knives are illegal to everyone, however old they are such as flick knives, butterfly knives and disguised knives. A flick knife is where the blade is hidden inside the handle and shoots out when a button is pressed. These are also called switchblades or automatic knives. A butterfly knife is a knife where the blade is hidden inside a handle that splits in two around it, like wings. The handles swing around the blade to open or close it. A knife where the blade is hidden inside something like a belt buckle or a fake mobile phone is a disguised knife

So are shopkeepers to blame? After all they seem to be the culprits arming our youngsters with these weapons. They should be strict and obey the law; otherwise the death toll will continue to rise.

Recently there has been a knife amnesty in the UK; during an amnesty people can drop their knives into special bins inside police stations. If they choose to give up their knives they will not get in any trouble with the police. In some areas secure bins may be in place in other locations, like schools, youth clubs and churches. A five-week long amnesty began in May 2006. Police said they were going to be much tougher on people who they catch with knives once it ended, as they have had the chance to surrender them. Anyone carrying an offensive weapon in a public place after the amnesty could be imprisoned for up to six months and receive a £5,000 fine. In 1995 a knife amnesty saw 40,000 weapons handed over to police, following the death of a school teacher called Philip Lawrence.

I discovered a school in Grimsby has introduced airport style metal detectors to search students for weapons. I was at once instantly supporting this. Tollbar Business and Enterprise College says it does not have a knife problem but has introduced the scanner as a safety measure. The college is 10 miles away from Birkbeck School where teenager Luke Walmsley was stabbed to death. Pupils will only be scanned if they are suspected of carrying a dangerous weapon. Students at the college think the handheld detectors are a good idea.

“Some people might be shocked but I think if they actually got the point explained to them of it they’d realise that it’s good” says Tom, 14. Heather, who is also 14, reckons, “It doesn’t necessarily mean that they think you’ve got something on you, you just feel fine and that you’re helping everybody else.” But Bradley, 11, didn’t think the school needed to introduce the searches as “no-one really carries knives that I’ve heard of but I think it’s a good idea.” But perhaps this school is the example that should be followed. Possibly if more precautions were taken more lives could be saved.

Why in the 21st century do children feel the need to carry a knife and what action should be taken was the question I put forward at the beginning of this speech. Of course there is no ABC answer to this. There will be a wide variety of conclusions people will come to. The answer would be too complex for any one person to answer apart from the beholder, for only they know why they do it. However, the actions taken, for example, upping the age of criminal responsibility or a knife amnesty are possibly not the right ways to go. Perhaps the way forward is families working closer together, as we have come to know that it is often people coming from troubled backgrounds who turn to knives. Maybe not. All we do know is children carrying knives is definitely not acceptable in today’s society. The law should be changed and obeyed so children cannot get access to these killer objects. Something will have to be done in the near future if we are to rectify this problem. Children and knives DO NOT go hand in hand and IS NOT acceptable in today’s society, action MUST be taken.