Idris Elba’s new BBC documentary on knife crime aired last night, and it couldn’t have come at a more important time. Britain is reeling from an unabated wave of senseless youth violence. Just this month, a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death on a bus in south London; a 12-year-old boy was allegedly killed by a 14-year-old in Birmingham; and a 17-year-old boy was found guilty of stabbing a 15-year-old girl to death over a teddy bear. Then there is 18-year-old Axel Rudakubana, jailed for 52 years for the horrific Southport stabbings last year. These shocking crimes hit the headlines because they plumb new depths of depravity. This is as bad as it gets, and it shows no signs of stopping soon.
Having spent nearly three decades investigating youth violence, I’ve witnessed how our inability to have honest conversations about knife crime’s demographic realities has hampered effective intervention. The statistics are clear: in urban Britain, knife crime disproportionately affects young black people, both as perpetrators and victims. Yet this fundamental truth remains largely unaddressed in public discourse.
Figures released last week show that there has been a fall in arrests in London due to a significant reduction in stop and searches. Between 2018 and 2023, arrests of under-18s for knife offences in the capital fell by 33%, while offences rose. Metropolitan Police data shows officers conducted 118,688 stop and searches in the year to January 2025, about 34,000 fewer than the previous year. A staggering 40% concerned black people, primarily aged 18-24.
When tackling knife crime, stop and search is a key police tool. Yet, it has been attacked as racist. Met Commissioner Mark Rowley recently suggested his officers have a growing reluctance to stop and search suspects because they rationalise that their careers could be “suspended for a couple of years if a complaint comes in”. Let’s be clear: by suspects we mean black suspects and by complaints we mean accusations of racism. But is stop and search racist? It is, admittedly, racial profiling — but it is not arbitrary. It is based on crime statistics, operational intelligence and demands from the silent majority of black people who’ve had enough of political correctness.
There is a complete lack of seriousness to address this epidemic of violence. The government’s latest solution — asking online knife buyers to submit ID documents and record live videos — epitomises the institutional detachment. This ignores how easily a troubled youth can access knifes from a kitchen drawer.
While the Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner acknowledges poorly executed stop and searches have “traumatised” communities, policing isn’t just reactive — it must be a deterrent. Ask any criminal what makes them think twice: it’s almost never sentencing, it’s usually the probability of getting caught. But if more and more police adopt a laissez-faire attitude toward combating knife crime due to squeamishness about racism, and more youths become emboldened to carry knives as a result, the outcome is obvious. And bloody.
The current crisis of extreme youth violence extends beyond policing. How are our young people nurtured, what is the state of their mental health, and are they expected to be responsible citizens? Many are too far past these considerations, though. Perpetrators display an alarming empathy deficit, unable to comprehend the consequences of their actions on victims, families, communities and themselves. This vacuum suggests deeper issues that neither poverty nor discrimination can explain. Many show signs of childhood trauma, exposure to violence, and breakdown in moral reasoning; a perfect storm when combined with social deprivation. While the Right may ponder what sort of family produces an Axel Rudakubana, the Left asks what sort of society creates such a monster.
Until we can have difficult conversations openly and honestly, while stigmatising knife crime for the sickness it is, we will get nowhere. Failing institutions, family breakdown and a ghettoised subculture that glamourises violence have conspired to create a knife crime epidemic which is spiralling out of control. Accusations of racist policing and ignoring why specific groups of young males are obsessed with extreme violence will only result in ineffective solutions. Our collective failure to address root causes with clarity and courage is serving no one. Enough is enough.
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Subscribe‘Epidemics’, ‘sickness’, and ‘trauma’ are all medical conditions. ‘Monsters’ exist in fiction.
In the early medieval period, all Anglo-Saxons – men as well as women – carried knives. Even those young in years who would now be classified as children carried knives. Not just an everyday tool but a sign of a rite of passage. So identified were these people with knives that the knife gave its name to the people.
Let it be known among the communities today that to habitually carry a knife is historically a white thing. For any youth to carry one today is a legacy of racism, colonialism and oppression. To carry one is to be historically identified with the majority community.
If they were being carried purely as tools then there wouldn’t be an issue, but they’re not, they’re being carried and used as weapons.
We have another factor at play here too, not only fear of accusations of racism, but also a reluctance of our judicial system to criminalise children. We can try to get a MASH team together to try to help young people that are heading towards a criminal future, however, in a similar situation as prevent, the young person cannot be forced to engage. We our literally powerless and the young people know this.
Stop and search will remove knives and other weapons from circulation and of course would reduce knife crime. That is a fact.
If the authorites don’t want to use Stop and Search then they are either failing in their public duty, in which case remove them, or they have another agenda.
The latter seems more likely. In which case that is where to start asking questions.
“Why do you not implement Stop and Search?”
“It is Racist.”
“Why is it Racist?”
That is the question to ask.
Till we stop mass importation of low IQ savages from Africa and Muslim countries and deporting those already here problem will only get worse.
“It is based on crime statistics, operational intelligence and demands from the silent majority of black people who’ve had enough of political correctness.”
I believe this sentence is correct. Black victims and their families should be prioritised over virtue signalling white liberal sentiment and the small group of black race grifting activists and targeted stop and search should be vigorously pursued. If necessary conduct a poll among the black community based on the statistics to back up what I believe is the predominant sentiment of the majority of them who don’t want to see their sons or daughters victims of knife crime.
The bigger scandal is of course the Pakistani rape gangs.
Why were there no arrests made over 30 years?
“It would have been racist” is not an answer the police and CPS can make. It makes no sense.
So ask them the question again. And again. And again. Until the truth comes out. For each and every victim. For each and every victim’s family. Ask them.
Look how far the government will go to stop anyone hearing what Tommy Robinson has to say!
https://x.com/RealDonKeith/status/1884730659081466179
Most of the information we receive on this topic comes from foreign media. Unherd are you listening?
All things, including ideas, have a sell-by date. Just as food goes stale and becomes a danger to health, so do ideas. Whatever the original intentions of ‘anti-racism,’ the ideology has now become a threat to public safety. Examples of atrocities that have occurred due to ‘anti-racism’ hysteria include:
• Manchester bombing
• Rape gangs
• Southport
• The knife crime epidemic
Yes, enough is enough. But ‘enough is enough’ means holding those responsible—the far left—to account, rather than politely asking them to take action.
The left liberal model for Britain’s cities was (and is) Democrat Mayor Lightfoot of Chicago who would often preside over 100 shootings a weekend in her city.
What’s most terrifying is that the mayor of London quite clearly couldn’t care less what happens to black children on his watch. We hear endlessly about the racism of whites but almost nothing about its prevalence in other communities.
Precisely.
Most of the victims are black kids
So the ones protesting racism, are actually facilitating those deaths.
And as for racism, a) race based differences exist, which is why knife crime and membership in the so called grooming gangs is much lower among Indians , SE Asians, and Chinese.
And b), you are right, only moronic white liberals do this hand wringing about racism. Most others groups are racist, again certain ones are really vicious while those aforementioned Asian groups make some effort – but they are racist too, make no mistake.
Great post.
I am sick and tired of accusation of racism aimed at white people.
It is much worse in other communities but obviously ignored because it destroyed left argument that multiculti is good for the West.
Remigration is the solution.
Hopefully we get leaders one day who implement what people want.
Didn’t New Labour introduce laws making carrying a knife illegal…so obviously there can’t really be a problem?
Of course there already was an adequate law against carrying an offensive weapon…but passing another one looked as if something was being done…so far as the MSM were concerned.
The rest of us “knew different…”.
Ome thought I can’t help wonder is how many of those Pakistani rapes would’ve been stopped if the physically less capable woman had been given some sort of device that would allow an equalization of the capability of force between a victim and a physically larger and more capable opponent or opponents….
Ah well obviously what we need is more “common sense” knife control. I for one am in favor of the government just issuing a knife to each household once a year that is registered, and the government can come inspect it at any time, that should final stop this epidemic of stabbings, of course forks can be used to stab people too…..
Most things can be used as weapons for those truly determined to do damage to others.
Mass immigration over 40 years of millions of foreigners into the UK who have no affiliation to or respect for British/European traditions and customs, coupled with their active encouragement by our elites to consider that their host nation is inherently and systemically racist and to ‘play the race card’ at every opportunity. And to be constantly fawned over and told how wonderful their alien attitudes and cultures are and how awful is ours; and endlessly to be assured that their hosts are historic oppressors and that they are innocent victims of embedded racism and foul prejudice. Is it any wonder that rape and violence associated with the nations of their origin has been imported into our national existence in the knowledge that our human rights activists and legislation will protect them as disadvantaged minorities?
We get getting what we deserve for having tolerated the madness of DEI activism to prevail for so long.