Knife amnestey bin targets violent crime in Sheffield
It's hoped a new knife surrender bin installed in Sheffield will help cut violent crime in the city by taking blades off the streets.
Various groups worked together to bring the project to the One Nation Community Centre in Nether Edge.
Clive Knowles founded the project and says every weapon handed in means one less chance of someone losing their life: “It’s always quite controversial. Nobody’s suggesting that knife banks are the answer to knife crime. It’s just one facet of many that goes towards it. But it raises awareness in the communities.
“We’ve got about 50,000 blades here now which have come through amnesty banks or knife initiatives so it does work. Communities getting involved and doing something for themselves rather than just complaining and waiting for it to be sorted out is a great thing for them to do.
“The Mayor was there at the launch in Nether Edge, you’ve got community workers there, representatives from all the different races...It was a combined effort and it does filter through to the young people on the streets. If that bank only collects 20 or 50 knives off the streets, it’s 20 or 50 opportunities for somebody to have been hurt.”
A representative of the Safer and Sustainable Community Partnership Board, which is jointly chaired by South Yorkshire Police and Sheffield City Council, said: “We share an absolute commitment to drive down gang culture and the use of weapons on the streets of Sheffield, and have a range of policing and partnership strategies, plans, interventions and education already in place.
“Our shared challenge and focus with this community based initiative is educating those that can be diverted from wanting to carry a knife, and enforcing the law against those who won’t.”