{"id":38848,"date":"2025-04-21T17:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T17:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/38848\/"},"modified":"2025-04-21T17:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T17:18:14","slug":"boys-make-up-a-quarter-of-knife-crime-convictions-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/38848\/","title":{"rendered":"Boys make up a quarter of knife crime convictions in London"},"content":{"rendered":"

814 of the 3,298 (25%) convictions and cautions handed to knife crime offenders in London were to boys aged 10 to 17 reports Sonja Tutty, Data Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"(Credit \u2013 Met Police)<\/p>\n

A quarter of convictions and cautions for knife crime in London were given to boys last year, recent figures show.<\/p>\n

A knife crime prevention charity said the crime statistics show a \u201cdeeply entrenched problem\u201d, adding targeted interventions to address toxic masculinity are \u201ccrucial\u201d.<\/p>\n

Analysis of Ministry of Justice figures<\/a> by RADAR shows 814 of the 3,298 (25%) convictions and cautions handed to knife crime offenders in London in the year to September 2024 were to boys aged 10 to 17.<\/p>\n

Of the sentences for young male offenders, 802 were for possession of a knife or offensive weapon and 15 were for threatening with a knife or offensive weapon.<\/p>\n

Across England and Wales, 17% of knife crime convictions or cautions last year were given to boys.<\/p>\n

Patrick Green, chief executive of the Ben Kinsella Trust, said: \u201cThe fact that knife carrying begins as young as 10 and escalates with age, coupled with the lack of significant progress in reducing these numbers, demonstrates a deeply entrenched problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo tackle this, we must address the specific factors influencing young males, including societal pressures, access to weapons, and the prevalence of violent content on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cTargeted interventions, focusing on early intervention, education, mentorship, and addressing underlying issues like toxic masculinity and lack of opportunity, are crucial to breaking this cycle of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking at all convictions or cautions for juvenile knife crime in London, 96% were given to male offenders.<\/p>\n

Boys similarly made up the vast majority (94%) of convictions and cautions handed to child knife crime offenders in England and Wales.<\/p>\n

It comes as the Education Secretary said she wants more men in the classroom \u201cteaching, guiding, leading\u201d boys.<\/p>\n

Bridget Phillipson warned in a speech this week of the \u201ctoxic online influences\u201d and the need to \u201craise a generation of boys with the strength to reject that hatred\u201d.<\/p>\n

The comments come amid a national conversation about the internet and children, partly prompted by recent Netflix drama Adolescence, and just weeks after ex-England manager Sir Gareth Southgate said many young men end up \u201csearching for direction\u201d and fill the void with a \u201cnew kind of role model who do not have their best interest at heart\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also follows Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s discussion with the show\u2019s creators, where he said he wanted to talk about \u201cwhat can we do as a society to stop and prevent young boys being dragged into this whirlpool of hatred and misogyny\u201d.<\/p>\n

Netflix said it would make the series free to stream for all secondary schools across the UK.<\/p>\n

Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention Dame Diana Johnson said the Government\u2019s aim to halve knife crime over a decade will be delivered through \u201ctougher enforcement and stronger prevention\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cWe will pursue every avenue to protect young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is why we are bringing in Ronan\u2019s Law to stop knives from being sold illegally online, why we have banned zombie-style knives and machetes and why we are delivering 13,000 new neighbourhood police officers to make our communities safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWe are developing a Young Futures programme which will intervene earlier, identifying and supporting vulnerable children to divert them from crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

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More Information about donations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"814 of the 3,298 (25%) convictions and cautions handed to knife crime offenders in London were to boys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,188,393,4884,12151,257,1413,135,22146,16,15,22147],"class_list":{"0":"post-38848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-knife-crime","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-met-police","15":"tag-metropolitan-police","16":"tag-ministry-of-justice","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-violent-crime"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114377097735042700","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}