By Lorena Cristea, Sam Sorabjee, Ross Maclean, Charlotte Mair
Islington council has announced their new Violence Reduction Strategy 2022. But residents in Islington still fear that not enough is being done.
The aim is to save lives and reduce serious injury, improve community resilience, empower the local population and increase trust in public services and the police. In the past year more than 1,000 knives have been handed in to police in Islington.
Lucy Wright, 23, works in finance in Islington. She said that Burnley, her hometown, hosts anonymous amnesty bins for people who want to turn in their weapons. ‘You can drop knives in, along with other things you want to dispose of such as drugs, and it’s run by the police.” she said.
As a response to the high number of knife-related crimes, Islington Council has introduced eight knife bins which, so far have taken more than 2,000 weapons off the streets of Islington. At least 1,000 of them being taken in the last year alone.
Another course of action the Council has taken as part of the violence reduction strategy is hiring a Young Women’s Worker who will help the Council to reduce gang-related suffering harm and exploitation towards women and girls. The person will work with women on a one-to-one basis and visit schools and community settings to spread awareness and identify who is at higher risk.
During 2019 and 2020, Islington recorded 554 knife crime offences, which is 19% less than in 2018 and 2019. However, the levels are still high compared with five years ago, according to the borough’s statistics.
Theses preventative measures to reduce knife crime are needed as many people have been affected by knife crime to some degree.
Maureen Cannon, 23, employee at Wetherspoons said: “I knew someone a few years ago, he knew people in a gang but wasn’t part of a gang, because he was known from being in a gang, they assumed he was and he got stabbed and died.”
Evidently more measures need to be taken in London to reduce knife crime as it becoming a growing threat.
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