The Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University is delighted to be partnering with Fighting Knife Crime London as academic partners. Staff and students across the Department of Law and Criminology will collaborate with Fighting Knife Crime London for educational purposes to promote teaching and learning; to enrich the lives of students through sharing knowledge, collaboration, capacity building and opportunities for research. In turn, this will form an important component in making our communities safer.
The aims and objectives of Fighting Knife Crime London align perfectly with the values of the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice which provides a vibrant environment at the cutting edge of legal and criminal justice practice to prepare students for excellence in their chosen professional career. Our central values are those of widening access to justice and education, the promotion of human rights, ethics in legal practice, equality and a respect for human dignity in overcoming social injustice.
Sheffield Hallam University is committed to demonstrate impact in the communities where we are based. This includes dealing with issues such as knife crime, which has its roots in social deprivation. In South Yorkshire, knife crime has doubled in the last nine years, which is one of the largest increases outside London. Increasingly, it is being recognised that a public health approach is needed to preventing and reducing violence in all its forms. This can only be achieved through collaborative working across traditional organisational boundaries and harnessing the strengths and resources of local communities.
The Helena Kennedy Centre has a track record in bringing learning to life through applied knife crime projects. This includes first year criminology students developing knife crime resources for use in secondary schools in partnership with South Yorkshire Police; a ‘street law’ schools project where students deliver workshops in local secondary schools, and bringing the lived experience into the classroom for students to hear firsthand about the aftermath of being involved in knife crime. Our research track record includes research by Dr Bankole Cole on knife crime in London which was partly funded with support from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime to develop Ubuntu Round Tables. The concept of Ubuntu focuses on inherent humanity and principles of restorative justice. Jake Phillips and colleagues in the department are currently completing research funded by the Ministry of Justice which aims to add to the evidence base in preventing and reducing knife crime through identifying effective approaches, strategies and interventions.
Through our partnership, we will support the creation and management of the website which will provide students with valuable experiences in order to enhance their ability to secure highly skilled employment on graduation. Our academic expertise will ensure that research is undertaken which has a real-world impact on the ground, nationally and internationally. We are clear that our aspiration is to work with the good practice developed through this website to disseminate learning, and to develop approaches in other parts of the country who are also working hard to tackle knife crime and all its associated issues.
Helena Kennedy QC states:
‘Knife crime is a serious crime which often affects the most vulnerable groups in our society. Interpersonal violence amongst the young occurs in the community, in schools, at work, at entertainment venues and in institutions and homes. The consequences are devastating for victims, perpetrators and their families alike. The burden of violence falls on those least able to respond in terms of their social class, ethnicity and relative poverty. In combating knife crime we need to document and share good practice. This is exactly what Fighting Knife Crime London seeks to do by developing a live resource of all organisations fighting knife crime all over London. The Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam is honoured to be able to support this project so that we can all learn and influence future policy developments in providing cost effective services for young people experiencing violence and in advocating preventive approaches based on evidence that focus on addressing the root causes of violence.’
