London knife-crime makes headlines, but the big rise is elsewhere

ACROSS THE country, some children are becoming victims, others perpetrators. On November 3rd a 15-year-old was stabbed in the chest in Swindon. Two days later, an 18-year-old was knifed in the leg outside a school in Bedford. On November 6th two teenagers suspected of stabbing a younger boy in Manchester were arrested. The boy was struck several times in front of other children out for Halloween.

But the media has focused on London, where there have been 119 murders this year, about the same as the number killed in the whole of 2017, excluding terrorist attacks. Four in ten victims were 24 or younger. In the six days from October 31st, there were five fatal stabbings in the capital. The hosts of “Good Morning Britain”, a television programme, berated Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. “Sort it out, Mr Mayor!” one said.

This narrow focus is partly justified. Stabbings are far more common in London than anywhere else in the country, and not only because it is so much bigger: it sees more violence per person than less populous areas. In 2017-18 it accounted for 22% of all murders and 36% of knife crime in England and Wales, though Londoners make up 15% of the population. Attacks in the capital also appear to be more ferocious than those elsewhere. Its murder count has risen more sharply than the country’s.

Yet the biggest increases in knife crime have been outside London (see chart). Since 2010-11 it has risen by a tenth in the capital, and by a third in the rest of England and Wales. During the same period, knife crime leapt more sharply than the national average in the patches around Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool. The number of stabbings began to tick up in North Wales, Norfolk and Essex well before they did in London. Jacqueline Sebire, assistant chief constable of Bedfordshire Police, recently dealt with four stabbings in 24 hours. “It’s wrong that people are placing the sole focus on London,” she says.

Some think the capital dominates coverage because of its concentration of journalists and politicians. They are “seeing it more visibly than the trends outside London,” says Harvey Redgrave of Crest Advisory, a consultancy. Mr Khan and Cressida Dick, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, are well known and so more likely to be held to account than a provincial police chief or politician. Others suspect politics. Tory-supporting newspapers have been quick to criticise Mr Khan, a Labour mayor who will have to fight an election campaign in a little over a year.

The best explanations for the surge are national. Labour blames spending cuts: the number of policemen has fallen by 15% since 2010. Meanwhile new demands on officers, such as a recent run of accusations of decades-old sex abuse, take up their time. Another plausible explanation is a shift in the drugs market. A boom in the supply of crack cocaine has encouraged city gangsters to expand into towns once dominated by small-time dealers. Competition has sparked violent turf wars.

Misdiagnosing the spread of the problem could frustrate attempts to tackle it. “A lot of police forces just want to deal with problems on their own patch,” says Rick Muir of the Police Foundation, a think-tank. “You need to look at it as a national problem.” Mr Khan might be feeling the heat, but responsibility ultimately rests with the Home Office.