Sunday, July 13, 2008

A stabbing epidemic?

The UK is being pleagued with stabbings of young and old alike, but how bad is the situation really?
Just below you can catch this weeks "current events in the UK", onr with an exceptional level of bloodshed as I've been collecting stories since thursday, and it's been a horribly bloody weeks end.

Earlier this year, the BBC pointed out that knife crime has come down a whopping 41% since '95, but one must know that such crime peaked during that year!
They published another piece just now, once where somebody sais something most interesting:

  • "One of the difficulties we are having in interpreting what's happening is the alarm that appears to be focused on this instrument itself [knives] instead of looking at the causes and locations of the violence.
Wise words if you ask me! It's long been my conviction that a person who truely whishes to kill one another will find a way to do so, will find a weapon to do so. He may have to settle for a less-than ideal tool for the job, but he will get it done!
So instead of focussing on the object, it is vital that we do something about this ... desire to kill, that is: if we want to solve the problem.

What problem? Wasn't knife crime down 41%? Let's read this article from the Times there were 236 knife murders in England and Wales in 2005, a number which doubled over a two year period to roughly 1.3 per day ... remember my "five a day" post last year? The evening standard agreed that knife violence (as well as violent crime as a whole) was going down!

Maybe it just looks very bad now, with sumer setting in, kids are out of school and people are spending more time out of their houses ... maybe, just maybe, it's all just a matter of perception?
Yeah, tell that to your shadow when you pass through the metal detector before hopping the tube, scream it at the bricks as you are searched when you set of an archway in a school street, explain it to your wife when you get arrested for the butter knife you cut your lunchmeat sandwiches with at work ... it's all a matter of perception.

Tell me: what does the following look like?
(read on below: current events in the UK)

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