knife crime - public perception

Recent high profile media coverage of such events has certainly raised public consciousness regarding knife crime / culture in Britain. Whatever the published statistics show, most people now appear to feel (with some justification), that knife crime is rapidly getting out of control, and that urgent tough action is required to curb it before it gets totally out of hand.

Police initiatives such as "Operation Blunt" or "Operation Shield" seem to be genuinely welcomed by the public, whilst initiatives such as knife amnesty's are viewed with more than a little cynicism, and at best viewed as a means of publicising the dangers of knife carrying.

On the positive side, knife amnesty's have at least contributed to taking thousands of weapons out of circulation. It is however, obviously unrealistic to expect to withdraw all knives from circulation, especially when kitchen knives, gardening knives, etc, all feature in violent attacks, and those surrendering knives, are of course likely to be from the more law abiding element of the community.