Knife Crime in the Black Community

Shaun Bailey AM proposed, and Keith Prince AM seconded, the following amended motion: 

“This Assembly is concerned that despite making up only 13% of London’s total population, black Londoners account for 45% of London’s knife murder victims, 61% of knife murder perpetrators and 53% of knife crime perpetrators.

This means black Londoners are disproportionately more likely to be victims and perpetrators of knife crime.

This Assembly recognises that knife crime is a long-term issue nationally and that all agencies need to work together to tackle it. Data published by City Hall in December 2021 reviewed disproportionality in serious violence among young people in London. The analysis highlighted that the driving factors behind young people becoming involved in or a victim of violence are lack of opportunity, deprivation and inequality. This Assembly believes that it is therefore important to talk about and tackle structural inequalities and institutional racial discrimination across the country to tackle disproportionality in youth violence.

Furthermore, this Assembly notes that there were some positive findings within the City Hall analysis which shows that all types of serious violence experienced by young people have fallen over the last four years, with knife crime resulting in injury down 36 per cent and under-25 knife crime down 48 per cent, compared to the peak in the twelve months to December 2017. However, every death from violent crime is heart-breaking, devastating families and communities, and we must continue do all we can to tackle the issue.

This Assembly notes that the Mayor Sadiq Khan introduced the Violence Reduction Unit, the first of its kind in England, rooted in prevention and early intervention. Furthermore, we note that the Mayor recently put funding into the London Crime Prevention Fund of almost £50 million to tackle crime in London over the next three years. This funding will support London boroughs to tackle violence in their area, reduce offending in the community and support victims.

This Assembly therefore calls upon the Mayor and the Government to set up a joint commission to specifically look at what additional resources are required to tackle knife crime affecting the black community and what his office, the Metropolitan Police Service and government departments such as the Home Office and Department for Education can do to work together to address this issue in London, and nationally.”

Following debate and upon being put to the vote, the motion was agreed unanimously.