Halving Knife Crime

By Patrick Green, CEO, The Ben Kinsella Trust and a member of the Government’s Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime.

The Government’s new strategy, Protecting Lives, Building Hope: A Plan to Halve Knife Crime, sets out an ambition that families affected by serious violence have waited far too long to hear. It marks a clear and welcome commitment to significantly reduce the harm caused by knives. For those of us who work daily with young people and schools, and for a charity founded by a family grieving the loss of their child, this ambition is not abstract. It matters deeply, because lives depend on it.

I write from my perspective as CEO of the Ben Kinsella Trust, where we support and empower thousands of young people every year, and as a member of the Government’s Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime. My combined roles provide a rare vantage point, one that recognises both the genuine strengths in the Government’s approach and the challenges that must be confronted if this plan is to succeed.

The pledge to halve knife crime within a decade was a central commitment of Labour’s 2024 manifesto, framed within its mission to “take back our streets” by reducing serious violence. On entering government, ministers reframed this pledge as a “moral mission”, establishing the Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime as an advisory body to test policy thinking, identify gaps, and ensure lived experience and frontline expertise shape strategic decisions.

Crucially, the plan acknowledges that knife crime is not a problem with a single cause or solution. It organises its response across four pillars, Support, Stop, Police, End and places welcome emphasis on a genuine “whole-of-society” approach. This framing is vital. The evidence is clear: policing alone cannot stop knife crime. It must be matched by early intervention, well-resourced youth services, and sustained support for young people growing up with trauma, exclusion and fear.

For this reason, the plan’s focus on early support and protecting children who are vulnerable to exploitation and serious violence is particularly encouraging. Commitments to expand youth mentoring, school based interventions and trauma informed services align closely with what we know works to keep young people safe. The real test for Government, however, will be whether it can deliver sustainable investment in these important early interventions. Short term funding cycles and time limited pilots cannot undo years of instability in young people’s lives. Prevention is too often the first casualty of funding cuts, despite its proven return on investment. Announced amid an uncertain economic outlook, this plan will only succeed if prevention is backed by reliable, long term funding, not just strong rhetoric.

The Police pillar outlines the central role policing will play in reducing knife crime through targeted enforcement, intelligence led patrols and effective local policing. It recognises the need to adapt to emerging threats, including the growth of online knife sales, and highlights the importance of developing modern policing approaches in collaboration with digital platforms and retailers. However, many of the measures outlined build on existing police powers and long established practice, meaning their success will rest on consistent, sustained delivery rather than new policy direction alone. Achieving meaningful and lasting impact will therefore require long term investment in specialist capability, such as the new National Knife Crime Centre, alongside a clear commitment to ensuring that the familiar policing tactics set out in the plan are applied fairly and consistently, and at the scale and pace required to reduce knife crime.

Crucially, the plan does not ignore the need for rehabilitation of offenders. For those convicted of knife offences, levels of repeat offending remain unacceptably high. The END pillar seeks to break this cycle by prioritising rehabilitation alongside accountability, recognising that without addressing trauma, exclusion and unmet need, enforcement simply recycles the same individuals through the system. Yet this pillar carries some of the greatest delivery risks. Meaningful rehabilitation depends on coordinated, properly resourced services across prisons, probation and local communities, systems that are already under severe pressure. Promises of improved resettlement, tailored supervision, and access to mental health support, education and employment will only reduce reoffending if they are delivered consistently, at scale, and beyond pilot schemes or well intended policy statements.

One notable shift in the plan is the requirement that every child caught carrying a knife is referred to Youth Justice Services and placed on a mandatory intervention programme. This brings an end to the inconsistent, postcode dependent responses that have failed too many young people in the past. On the face of it, this is a rational and potentially transformative change. However, many young people carry knives not through malice, but because they are fearful, groomed, coerced or living with trauma. As Professor Stan Gilmour argues elsewhere in this publication, there is a real risk that mandatory, enforcement led pathways can place young people deeper into the criminal justice system rather than safeguarding them. As he puts it, “the real question is whether the coercive architecture threaded through this scheme will produce the outcomes it promises”. Without safeguards, discretion and clear separation from punitive pathways, mandatory interventions risk pulling frightened or traumatised children deeper into the criminal justice system, the very outcome evidence warns against.

The mission to halve knife crime is both vital and exceptionally challenging to deliver. It should also be recognised that this plan represents the strongest commitment a Government has made to tackling knife crime in the past eight years, and that it has the potential to make a genuine difference. For families like the Kinsella’s who have lost loved ones, for young people who live in fear on their own streets, and for communities calling for lasting change, the stakes could not be higher, and failure is simply not an option.