The number of knife-related deaths in England and Wales in 2022 was the highest since records began 77 years ago. Since 2010, the number of knife offenses in this region has risen by 34 percent. But the capital has seen the largest annual increase of any area. 

London has a serious problem with knives—almost 30 percent of the 50,000 knife-related offenses in England and Wales last year occurred there. The Metropolitan Police recorded 14,577 knife offenses in 2023—a 22 percent rise from the previous year. 

The case of Daniel Anjorin is illustrative. In a quiet suburban neighborhood of northeast London, the 14-year-old schoolboy was attacked by a man with a machete and fatally stabbed at the end of April this year. In Redbridge, the borough in which Anjorin was killed, knife crime increased by 22 percent last year—its highest level since 2018. 

Bans on dangerous edged implements have been touted as a solution to the problem. “Zombie” knives, for instance, are long, extravagant blades with a cutting edge, a serrated edge, and typically feature menacing words printed on the blade or handle. They were inspired by zombie movies that depict such weapons as ideal for slaughtering the undead, and were added to the Offensive Weapons Act of 2019. According to the law, knives with writing or images deemed “threatening” on the blade or handle would be prohibited; manufacturers were in compliance with the law as long as they removed the images. Alongside Teresa May in 2016, a series of Conservative home secretaries promised to strengthen the law to close this loophole. Finally, an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill was required to enact laws that forbade the sale of zombie knives with or without lettering, and the law will go into effect in September.

However, bans are not the solution, because someone set on murder can find a way to do it. Almost anything can be used as a weapon. Of the 590 homicides that occurred last year across England and Wales, 41 percent involved the use of a knife or another sharp object, so short of prohibiting utility knives, razor blades, and kitchen paring tools, it is hard to imagine how bans will put a dent in the problem. England has a people problem, not a knife problem.

A significant portion of the fatalities are teenagers. The greatest number of teenage deaths in London’s history occurred in 2021. Thirty people, aged between 13 and 19, lost their lives in the capital that year—27 of them were fatally stabbed with a knife or another sharp instrument. Across the country, the picture is the same. Fifty-one teenagers were killed in England and Wales in the year that ended March 2023; 82 percent of these homicides involved the use of a knife or another sharp object.

In London, though, it extends beyond this cohort. A clear picture begins to show when you take other variables like ethnicity into account. In the capital, the victims are disproportionately black people. Although comprising only 13 percent of London’s population, black individuals constitute 44 percent of the city’s homicide victims, and 48 percent of the homicide suspects. Why is this figure so alarmingly high? Poverty and social media are frequently pointed to as the culprit. “Fifty percent of the blame lies with us as parents and fifty percent is the government—both are in denial,” said Sheldon Thomas, the founder of a nonprofit organization created to assist young people involved in gang culture, in an interview with the Independent newspaper. 

Absent fathers contribute mightily to the problem. Empirical evidence indicates that 43 percent of black African children and 63 percent of children of black Caribbean heritage live in single-parent households. Young people are drawn to an ersatz father figure when there isn’t a strong male role model in the family or when the mother is out working as hard as she can to make ends meet. Thomas tells the Daily Telegraph, “I remember a member of a gang once saying to me, ‘If you are not going to raise your children, we will raise them for you.’”

Instead of trying to ban knives, a far more successful option would be to increase the use of stop-and-search. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, however, is opposed, citing worries about “institutional racism” and the possibility of racial profiling. Khan declared in his electoral campaign that he would “do everything in [his] power to cut stop and search.” Consequently, the practice has decreased dramatically during his mayoralty, and by 44 percent over the past two years.

Scotland found a solution that was less infected by woke politics. In the early 2000s, Scotland was experiencing a huge problem with gang violence. To combat the problem, Strathclyde Police set up the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), an ambitious large-scale initiative to tackle violent behavior. It was extremely successful, as evidenced by a 38 percent decrease in homicide and a 43 percent fall in serious assault since 2006. This was achieved by tripling the sentence for carrying a knife and expanding the use of stop-and-search, which was four times higher in 2010 in Scotland than in England. 

Gang members were invited to police stations by the VRU, where they were informed they were all under surveillance and faced lengthy prison sentences. They were also told about how their acts of violence affected the people they left behind. Mothers talked openly about losing their sons. After that, they were given offers of support, education, housing, and employment so they could leave the gang world behind. It was bold and ambitious.

The VRU’s approach won’t always work. Extending Scotland’s success in reducing knife crime to other regions of the United Kingdom is a challenging task. Scotland is 96 percent white, and so the police are able to fight crime proactively without being accused of racism when they arrest murderers, who are disproportionately nonwhite. In London, where almost two-thirds of the population identifies as other than white or white British, racial justice activists push a narrative of racist policing that they have borrowed from their American counterparts.

Khan, playing racial politics, insists that stop-and-search practices will erode the public’s confidence in the police. He should bring that up with the parents of Daniel Anjorin and the other 30 or so families who have lost children to knives.