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The Bunker – News without the nonsense

The knife crime 'epidemic': What's really going on?

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Society & Culture, Politics, Government

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2024

⏱️ ? minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Britain’s knife crime crisis is regularly called a “pandemic” in the media. But just how serious is the problem?  Who suffers from it most? And does any political party have the right idea of how to combat it? To answer these questions, Andrew Harrison speaks to Dr James Alexander of London Metropolitan University’s criminology department. • “Knife crime is reported as a black issue, which is a problem with the media. It is more widespread than that, it is about poverty, it is about these people not receiving the support they need, regardless of their ethnicity.” – Dr James Alexander • "People are growing up in areas where knife crime is just a fact of life. They are desensitised to the idea of carrying a knife.” – Dr James Alexander • “The criminals they are often targeting are 14, 15, 16 year olds – they are children who need support to get back into education, and support for mental health issues." – Dr James Alexander Support us on Patreon:www.patreon.com/bunkercast  Written and Presented by Andrew Harrison. Produced by: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio production: Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.

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I loved going to college.

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Yeah, yeah.

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theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome back to the bunker, your daily news and politics explainer from the

1:14.6

makers of Oh God What Now, I'm Andrew Harrison.

1:18.1

Knife Crime, it feels like a crisis right now with daily stories of heartbreaking and often senselessly trivial fatal

1:24.5

stabbings of young people across the country.

1:27.0

Lured tabloid panics about zombie knives and alleged connections with drill music

1:30.9

and attempts by public figures to turn young people away from carrying knives at all.

1:35.0

Already this year Idris Elba has launched a campaign called Don't Stop Your Future and Arsenal FC launched an all-white strip as part of their No More Red campaign.

1:45.6

Elba said, when the world is looking at us, they're thinking England must have a tolerance

1:49.5

for knife crime. We don't, we shouldn't. But there's also a subtext out there across social media and in newspaper comment boxes,

1:57.0

often from older, often suburban voices,

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