Gloucester expert reflects on anti-knife crime coalition

A Gloucester based specialist has provided local insight into the issues discussed at Monday’s knife crime summit at Downing Street, where the prime minister announced a new coalition aimed at halving knife crime in the next decade.

Lewis Whitter is the Serious Violence Project & Evaluation Lead for the Gloucestershire Fire and Rescue Service.

A key part of his role is delivering the 'Knife or Your Life' programme at the Gloucestershire SkillZONE, an intervention focused on reducing youth violence, county lines involvement, and antisocial behaviour.

The project works to empower young people to make safer choices and understand the serious consequences of carrying weapons and engaging in illegal activities.

Lewis says the key to having an impact on the issue is developing a greater understanding of its causes:

“Within the serious violence team in Gloucester we partner with the OPCC (The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner) and work backwards through these problems, and when we have a knife crime incident, we look at where does that stem from?”

“It’s deprivation, it’s a lack of education, it's a lack of opportunity, it’s feeling left out and not valued, so we need to then be able to look at that across the board and interlink as many people and services as we can.”

That emphasis on collaboration and interconnected thinking was also a key aspect of Monday’s summit.

The prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s coalition features Hollywood star Idris Elba, experts including the police, youth workers, technology companies and victims' families, to provide varied insight and expertise.

Lewis feels that this utilisation of people with relevant lived experience is a crucial factor in approach’s potential success:

“I think it's the perfect strategy to win, and it wouldn't be right to leave it to political leaders and people that don't understand knife crime and poverty, or the areas in which these incidents happen.”

“We can't just have politicians talking about this anymore, we can't have people who have never been involved in knife crime or seen the causes of it talk about the subject.”

Lewis himself is able to offer an insightful perspective on the issue, both professionally and from his own experiences:

“People might think that county lines, knife crime and grooming isn't a problem in Gloucester, but I've grown up with personal experience of exploitation.”

Whilst Gloucestershire Police figures show that rates of knife crime in the county are below the national average, currently standing at 0.595 per 1,000 people locally, compared with 0.611 per 1,000 nationally, Lewis is keen to emphasise how the discussion is still highly relevant:

“We need to look into our community and not treat problems like the recent incidents on Barton Street and in Colford and Cinderford as isolated, different things, it's the same problem.”

“The people involved don't have access to education, they don't have access to opportunity, so don't look at the colour of someone's skin or the area they’re from, look at the lack of opportunities within that area and what's going on there.”

Monday’s summit is now intended to become an annual event, allowing those involved to monitor progress and share best practices.

Following the meeting’s conclusion, actor Idris Elba, whose Elba Hope Foundation is part of the new coalition, reflected positively on the discussions but stated that ‘actions speak louder than words’.

Lewis says that is a reflection on the importance of there being actual impact on the issue, beyond mere discussions:

“We have a lot of organisations throughout the country, and massive ideas of what we should do to combat knife crime.”

“However, in terms of actual action, outreach to youth has been cut completely, and we no longer have the community leaders in our country, especially in Gloucester, to be able to work with the children and people involved in knife crime.”

“We need to all get together, not just the government and organisations, but people and communities as well, and be provided with the necessary resources in order to combat the issue.”

This notion of community being at the centre of positive, preventative change is seen as a key aspect of the battle against knife crime.

Whilst there has been much discussion about the accessibility of dangerous weapons being bought online, Lewis believes the key to having an impact is actually reshaping views from within our local communities:

“Accessibility is definitely a problem, and we need to look into ways of charging companies who just apathetically import and sell these kinds of knives to whoever.”

“But then we need to take a step back, there's knives in our drawers, in schools for cooking, so accessibility isn't really the problem.”

“I believe there needs to be work within schools, within the home, and within communities to create safe spaces again and where community leaders talk about respect and love.”

“Because even if we had a million knives imported per day, as long as we can reset the values and precedence of the love we have for each other, then I don't believe that one of those million knives would be used.”