The BBC joined a team trying to protect young people by getting weapons off the streets of Bristol.
Bristol has been shocked by a recent rise in knife crime, which has claimed the lives of numerous teenagers and sent many others to prison. The BBC joined a team trying to protect young people by getting weapons off the streets.
Inside the car, there are four young men aged between 16 and 18, and in the middle seat, a 17-year-old girl. They are all handcuffed – quivering with adrenaline and shaking broken glass from their hoodies. Less than three weeks later, Darrian Williams bled to death outside a shop. The 16-year-old had been stabbed in the back in a park and staggered to the road for help.
In the room are teachers who’ve lost pupils, social workers supporting bereaved and broken families, and medics who’ve stitched children’s wounds or had to declare them dead.Giles Haythornthwaite, a trauma doctor from Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, is clear about the threat level they have faced.
Officers are discouraged from referring to “gangs” when describing violent groups because of concerns it infers they’re predominantly from black or ethnic minority backgrounds. The reality of Bristol’s youth violence is multi-ethnic.Avon and Somerset Police is clear the growing problem is among young men aged 14 to 19, but some boys are picking up weapons much younger.
“I just don’t feel safe outside,” says a nine-year-old in the barber’s chair. “I feel more safe inside my house, not outside. Here, I can have a nice time without any worries of anything bad happening.”“This last few months I’ve seen more stabbings and murders than I’ve ever known,” says PC Jones. “I’ve got children that sort of age, it does make me concerned for that generation.”
BBC News was given access to a weekly meeting monitoring young people at greatest risk of violence, either as perpetrator or victim – and often the same person risks both. These are officers who really know the lives of these young people and their families - it’s a task somewhere between surveillance and social work, but trust is fragile.
“I don’t know," he says, gruffly. "So I’m not the odd one out, maybe?” He says he didn’t intend to use it to harm anyone: “I’m into knives, innit? I like the way they look.”
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