depending on what news channel you listen to, anything from 12 to 18 teenagers have been killed in greater london , in or around london, or nationwide ( which may or may not include wales, but excludes scotland )......


while i will admit that there is somewhat of a growing, mainly, knife-crime problem IN ( and Lets say for the sake of argument) -CENTRAL LONDON, there does seem to be a bit of hysteria whenever 24 news channels report this. this is due in part becuse the problem is not quantified.....

news channels don't say for instance that women are still more likely to be killed by a spouse than by a teenager wielding a knife or a gun.


new born babies are still more likely to be killed by distraught mothers than by being killed by knife weilding teenagers...

and if you are a teenager you are just as likely to be killed or injured by a car on londons streets than by a kife or gun.

or the fact that whichever statistic you read there is less crime than there has ever been ( people seem to quickly forget knife wielding teddy boys, skin heads and football hooligans)


....many of the weapons used by teenagers are mainly from the kitchen ( cake knifes etcc...)

stop and search doesn't work because the problem that keeps kids carrying knifes was caused by a long term problem and only long solutions will help not short sharp stop and search which has a hit and miss rate of mostly miss