Getting to the Point? Reframing Narratives on Knife Crime
| Author | Simon Harding |
| DOI | 10.1177/1473225419893781 |
| Published date | 01 April 2020 |
| Date | 01 April 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1473225419893781
Youth Justice
2020, Vol. 20(1-2) 31 –49
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1473225419893781
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Getting to the Point? Reframing
Narratives on Knife Crime
Simon Harding
Abstract
Amid rising public concern of knife-enabled crime, this article seeks to review and reframe the contemporary
debates on knife crime which remain tied to concepts of fear, protection and fashion. Concepts of social
field theory and street capital theory have much to offer in reframing a more contemporary narrative.
Through such analysis, knife crime can be redefined as a logical response to the unpredictable asymmetrics
of the social field, offering mechanisms for agency and control while providing both a pressure release and
opportunity to demonstrate authenticity in ‘The Game’.
Keywords
gang, habitus, knife crime, social field, street capital, youth violence
Knife-enabled crime has emerged as the most significant national debate on UK youth
crime for several years with public debates mostly exploring offenders’ motivations which
then centre on commonly recognised tropes of protection, safety, ubiquity and normativ-
ity. Recent academic research continues to widen these motivational debates acknowledg-
ing perceptional insecurity (Traynor, 2016), engagement in deviant lifestyles (Harcourt,
2006) and lack of trust in police (Brennan, 2018) as key variables. Building upon these
perspectives, this article seeks to reframe the dominant narrative by examining how knife-
carrying and knife-enabled crime is also a signifier of street ‘authenticity’ and, thus for
some, an agentic route to advancement within the social field of the street gang.
Current Debate
Knife crime fatalities in England and Wales have reached a 70-year peak according to the
Office for National Statistics (ONS, 2019), sparking widespread alarm and public debate.
Between 2017 and 2018, 285 homicides were carried out using a knife or sharp instrument
Corresponding author:
Simon Harding, University of West London, St Mary’s Road, Ealing, London W5 5RF, UK.
Email: Simon.Harding@uwl.ac.uk
893781YJJ0010.1177/1473225419893781Youth JusticeHarding
research-article2020
Special Issue Artic le
32 Youth Justice 20(1-2)
(of which 55 occurred in London) (ONS, 2019), and by year ending March 2018, offences
involving a knife or sharp instrument totalled 40,100 (Allen and Audickas, 2018).
Exploring the data reveals that 63 per cent of sharp instrument homicide victims were
White and 25 per cent were Black; 25 per cent were men aged 18–24 (up 38%) with 25 per
cent killed by friends/acquaintances and 25 per cent killed by a stranger (ONS, 2019).
Suspects too are mainly young men aged 16–24.
Importantly, Massey et al. (2019) recently identified that not only is knife-enabled
crime highly localised in certain locations but analysis of non-fatal knife-enabled attacks
can help pinpoint localities for future knife-enabled homicides.
As a result, tackling knife crime is now a top priority for the UK government via the
Violent Crime Strategy (HM Government, 2018); the Metropolitan Police and the Violent
Crime Task Force (VCTF); and for the London Mayor via his London Knife Crime
Strategy (MOPAC, 2017).
As new strategies to tackle knife-enabled crime are commissioned, the current vogue is
to stress the newly articulated public health, rather than criminal justice, approach, that is,
advocating partnership working to reduce risk factors (Cordis Bright, 2015; Eades et al.,
2007; Foster, 2013; McVie, 2010; Sethi et al., 2010; Williams et al., 2014). For a recent
analysis of contemporary evidence on knife crime, see Grimshaw and Ford (2018).
The search to explain increased UK knife-enabled crime has revealed a dearth of con-
temporary research into offender motivations. This situation was also reported over
10 years ago by Eades et al. (2007), and while unchanged, it remains a serious impediment
to our understanding of these issues.
As a result, the foremost perceptional paradigms underpinning motivational narratives
for knife-carrying remain little changed over 50 years with their familiar focus on symbol-
ism, fear, protection and fashion. These traditional perceptional paradigms stress the fear
generated by other young people, threats of robbery or violence and the violence associ-
ated with drug markets. Interestingly, some of the recent increase in knife-enabled crime
data is now attributed to altered business models for drug supply, known as county lines
(National Crime Agency (NCA), 2019) and how these supply lines are controlled by street
gangs.
While UK street gangs are not new, their rapid evolution (Densley, 2013; Harding,
2014; Pitts, 2008) now offers further explanatory dimensions to knife crime data, not least
because gang members demonstrate a greater propensity to carry knives (McVie, 2010)
compared to non-gang members. Despite the fact that public debates and government
policy often (overly?) focus on the street gang as a contributory factor to knife-enabled
crime, the learning derived from gang research has barely impacted upon our understand-
ing of offender motivation for knife-enabled crime. This remains a serious gap in our
knowledge and inhibits the development of harm reduction policies and interventions. It
also leaves knife crime policy predicated on outmoded research while ignoring contem-
porary gang evolution as a motivating dynamic.
In short, government policy and policy interventions remain over-reliant on ageing
tropes of youth motivations in knife crime. Research on knife-enabled crime remains
heavily focused upon narratives of self-protection and self-defence and are seldom
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