Funding to tackle knife crime

Brooke Kinsella: I will never forget the moment I was told that my brother had died. After praying for five hours that he would pull through, and being told that it was fifty-fifty at one point, our lives were destroyed when we were told he would never be coming home again.

I mean, today is a big step for me. Almost £20m dedicated. It’s £20m that we didn’t have yesterday – for me that’s a massive difference. Help for these projects out there – you know, a lot of these people do this just for their passion and because they want to see good out there – they haven’t even lost someone, like me. And I really want the support and the help for them to carry on doing what they are doing.

Theresa May: And I think that Brooke’s report highlights just how important an issue knife crime remains. It brings home that tackling knife crime will take a concerted effort from the whole of society – that includes not only government but also local authorities, voluntary groups and, of course, young people themselves.

Brooke Kinsella: In particular, I talk about lack of support for girls out there. It’s not so much girl gangs – it’s girls that are caught up in gangs. They have family members, boyfriends that are involved in gangs and are asked to hold or hide weapons, drugs – used as sexual objects. So we need to do a lot more work around our girls out there.

Young children – early intervention is so, so important. We need to reach these kids before it even enters their head that they might pick up a weapon.

And parents as well. There’s a lot of work that could go on with parents and the bonds with them and their children, around youth crime and its issues. So they’re the main gaps that I’ve found. But for me the biggest finding was the positivity and hope out there. There’s some pretty amazing work going on out there.

It’s education. I mean, I understand the reasons why schools might not welcome knife crime projects, but for me the word is prevention. We need to get into schools. We have these ‘good’ and ‘bad’ schools that we label, but every kid picks up a knife for the first time, as I say, and we need to get in there before. I’ve seen my dad go into schools and give a speech and the impact that he has is incredible, and I think if we had more of that it would make a massive difference.

Date: Wed Feb 02 00:29:49 GMT 2011