Opinion Tackling Teenage Knife Crime

DCC Alfred Hitchcock has over 30 years of experience in policing after starting his career with Lancashire Constabulary in 1977. He stayed with the Lancashire force until he joined the Metropolitan Police Service in 2003 rising to the rank of Deputy Assistant Commissioner. DCC Hitchcock is currently the Head of the National College of Police Leadership, and until April 2009 was the Head of the Tackling Knives Action Programme---‘The Knife Czar’. In this article, the author reflects on the mission of this programme and its outcomes, and draws upon it as a model approach for future police partnerships. The knife has been a commonly used weapon of choice in many serious crimes over decades indeed centuries. Concerns have risen and waned over the last 60 years, starting with the ‘Teddy boys ’ and flick knives in the 1950s. Unsurprisingly it is the ease of availability that is a key factor---there are lots in every kitchen drawer! Although knife crime has been a feature in Britain for many years, events in late 2007 and the first half of 2008 created serious public concern and a government impetus to do more to address this is-sue. The combination of factors that came together were (i) a series of high profile knife murders of teenagers, (ii) hospital trend data indicating a con-tinuing growth in admissions of young people with knife crime wounds, (iii) knife possessions research showed age reductions for carriage, and (iv) surveys of public concern showed knife offences had moved from being of little concern to being the ‘most im-portant issue facing Britain today when it comes to crime’. Perhaps most important of these was the hos-pital data that indicated a five-year upward trend in wounding