Shadow Home Secretary meets Bristol knife crime campaigners
Yvette Cooper hosted a round table discussion in Brislington
The Shadow Home Secretary has met with community and charity leaders in Bristol to discuss what must be done to tackle knife crime.
Yvette Cooper met with people at Hungerford Community Centre in Brislington today (24th April) to hear what needs to change and outline some of Labour's plans, if the party wins the next General Election, which is widely expected to take place before the end of the year.
Others in attendance included Leanne Reynolds who campaigns to get bleed control kits installed across the West Country, Hari Tyler from Bristol Drugs Project and Martin Bisp who runs boxing gym turned youth club Empire Fighting Chance.
Issues discussed included a lack of funding for youth projects, failures in the education system leading to too many children being excluded and not enough support for young people in the criminal justice system.
Martin told Hits Radio: "I think it's important (having a meeting like this).
"We've lost the community feeding into decision making, so any chance organisations like us have to help shape the way that we think about knife crime or violence reduction is extremely important."
Last month Hits Radio revealed fatal stabbings across Avon and Somerset were up 160 per cent in 2023.
Martin says there are a number of reasons why the issue is getting worse.
"It can be fed by domestic abuse, it can be fed by school exclusions, it can be fed by inequality, the biggest driver really is inequality.
"I guess we've been in a position where we've had austerity policies, we've had the Covid pandemic and then we went into a cost of living crisis so I think you've had probably the Holy Trinity of problems that's led us to a position where actually life is quite tough for a lot of people."
He feels at least part of the solution is to invest heavily in local communities.
"My friend...he uses the word 'proximity, proximity, proximity'. If it's not local and we've not invested in communities then how can we expect to make a difference," he said.
Yvette Cooper said Labour wants to halve knife crime over the next 10 years and meeting people like Martin will help shape the plan for how to do that.
"There was a strong mix of things (that came up)," she said.
"They had very powerful and troubling stories to tell about young people who are being sent things from gangs on social media about teaching them how to effectively get involved in crime, luring young people into crime in the first place," she said.
"We heard that action is just not being taken."
We have asked the government for a response.