Creating Material (U7: P5)

Learning Outcome 4 (U7): Be able to write and edit a news article for an identified purpose


P5 (U7): Write an original article for an identified purpose

Injustices of Knife Crime

Over the past 3 years, knife crime has rocketed in the UK, causing a nationwide crisis. Many factors have led to this drastic rise of knife crime in the UK; with people placing a large amount of the blame on drill music. But is this fair? Drill music has long been an ‘escape goat’ of the recent rise of knife crime. But does it actually contribute to as much knife crime as people like to believe?

In 2014/15, recorded knife crime was at 25,000, rising to 44,000 in the latest records. This is the largest number of recorded knife crime on records. Where it cannot be denied that this has come about, at the same time as a recent increase in the popularity of drill music; it has also come at a time where there has been a drastic increase of people living in poverty. So, what’s a bigger cause of knife crime, Drill music or clear inequalities, especially for those part of the black community.

Jinx Prowse, who runs the Music Fusion youth project in Hampshire. She said “Gangs and their culture exist first. This then informs the music. Banning drill would be a naive and impotent response to addressing the real issues behind knife crime.” This is a popular belief, as many people recognise that knife crime has many, many underlying issues, that have led to the recent fluctuations in the number of knife crime. 

Drill music has allowed people to escape from gang cultures, and build something for themselves. MK, an up-and-coming artist said “Before I started something for myself in music, I was set on living on the streets, selling drugs to make ends-meat, and more than likely die on the streets”. Drill music has allowed people, who are the most vulnerable, and most likely to increase the number of knife crime, escape from there pre-determined future, building a promising life for themselves. 

Arguably, the main reason for knife crime is the bad living conditions, that a large amount of young people find themselves living in, in the capital. The poor estates, and lack of opportunities leaves the people with only one role model; the ones on their block. They spend their lives looking up to these people, and aspire to be like them. This creates a clear problem, and starts a chain of young people, brought up around these activities, resulting in them only knowing one way of living. 

Young people who come from these poor estates are far more likely to be involved in knife crime, but not due to drill music, due to the lack of opportunities and discrimination they are accustomed to. A Guardian survey found that 43% of those from a minority or ethnic background had been overlooked for a work promotion or work, in a way that felt unfair in the last 5 years. Seeing statistics like this, it makes it much clearer as too why so many young people find themselves in knife related situations; being shot down when they attempt to break away from the situation that they were born into. 

Dollis Valley in North London is a place where the lack of opportunities is clear to see. Residents here can only afford the necessary’s, and a large majority even struggle with this. Living in a situation as difficult as this puts people onto the path of knife crime, leaving them feeling like they have no other route. A resident at Dollis Valley said “these conditions, and lack of opportunities provided by the local council, it’s no wonder that these young kids only see one way for themselves”.

Out of the 13.4 million recorded people in the UK living in poverty, 34% of these are children. This really strikes home the current situation the UK is in at this current moment. Reaching out to 15 children, aged 13-15; 11 of them said they believed the way to leave their situation, and build something for themselves, was drill. This shows you, doesn’t it. Drill is not the enemy, but in many ways, the solution. 

If we put as much effort into building a future for these poor children, instead of putting it all in speaking negatively about them; branded them bad and lost, then maybe the number of lives lost, due to knife crime, would be reduced drastically. Out of those 15 children we spoke too, 9 said they feel safer carrying a knife, than without. Out of those 9, all said they both don’t want to carry one, and would not use it unless felt threatened. These children don’t want to be in this situation, but failure after failure after failure from people above them have left them in this situation. 

These factors have hopefully shown you that blaming knife crime on the popularity) of drill is NOT too blame for the rise of knife crime in the UK. There are many deep-rooted causes and problems that young people face on a day to day basis. There are things we can all do, that can will help the young. But banning and removing drill will prevent the above-the-line hatred, but will only result in an underlining hatred to boil over.