knife crime research - Tackling the problem - current initiatives

Current initiatives include:

Legislation - a government bill currently in the House of Lords features legislation to prohibit the sale of knives to anyone under the age of 18

Knife amnesty - these are designed to take knives off the street - although in reality, it is the law abiding citizens rather than the target groups which are more likely to surrender weapons.

Police Operations - such as operations Blunt and Shield involve the rapid and random deployment of metal detectors in public places such as stations, schools, etc. with strong police backup. The purpose being to identify and arrest anyone carrying illegal weapons. 

Many schools are already using or considering the use of metal detectors to detect pupils carrying knives to school, or to deter them from doing so.

Whilst the above activities are moves in the right direction, much more needs to be done;

- At present whilst the law  provides for the imprisonment for up to 2 years for anyone illegally carrying a knife (up to 4 years if it's considered an offensive weapon), yet the implementation of any prison sentence at all appears almost non existent.  

Many people support the action group run by the parents of Luke Walmsley (the schoolboy who was stabbed to death in 2003), in calling for a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years for carrying a knife. This would put it on a par with the penalty for carrying a gun, and could therefore be an effective deterrent. There are however there are obvious practical implications for the implementation of such measures, not least of which is that our prisons are already at bursting point, - with judges calling for fewer people to be imprisoned rather than more!