'Kids carry knives to feel big...they don't realise it's on social media forever'

Blackpool Gazette

Young people are damaging their life chances by sharing pictures of themselves brandishing knives on social media.  Emma Owen, who co-ordinates the No More Knives programme, explains how they have been steering children away from knife crime and gang culture.

Transcript

00:00 We've had students come up to us and hand balaclavas to us and actually say,

00:05 "Do you know what? I wanted that persona of being aggressive, of being dangerous,

00:10 that people would be scared of me and they'd be respectful of that violence that I'm portraying.

00:15 But actually after sitting in your lesson I want to hand in the balaclava

00:18 because I recognise that actually I have value and worth and I have a different choice

00:22 and I want to make a better choice today."

00:24 Often you'll find young people will have balaclavas brandishing a knife

00:28 because they think that's going to give them respect.

00:31 But they don't recognise there's a blueprint then that's on the internet

00:36 that actually years down the road they're going for a job.

00:39 That's going to come up, they're not going to get a job.

00:41 And Sergeant Dan Whittaker from Blackpool who'd been on the tour this week,

00:46 he said often they'll find out who that young person is with the balaclava,

00:50 they'll knock on the door and they'll find out it's this young 12-year-old,

00:54 very innocent, has no intention of using a knife but feels the pressure to look big.

01:00 But unfortunately they don't realise the damage that's going to cause their future careers

01:05 and futures in relationships in years to come.

01:10 The most common reason for carrying a knife is one, protection,

01:18 but also because they want to look big, they want to get that respect.

01:22 And unfortunately there are some young people that will actually use that knife

01:26 in a threatening way or maybe actually use it to harm somebody.

01:30 And that's why it's really important that we go in and we educate our young people

01:34 but also look about and challenge them about what they put online.

01:38 When we speak to the police officers and they go and knock on,

01:41 they often find that the kids are embarrassed, the parents didn't realise what was happening,

01:46 they're very remorseful and then they change their ways and delete all the posts.

01:52 We've recently had a situation where a young child had lost one of their parents

01:59 and they went to a teacher after our lessons and said,

02:03 "You know, I'm going through a rough patch and actually I've been selling knives to make money

02:09 because I haven't got a parent to give me pocket money anymore."

02:13 Social media has a lot to answer for, it's full of influencers,

02:16 but we talk about this in our lessons, who influences you, who are your role models?

02:21 And we talk about how drill is really catchy, there's nothing wrong with the sound of drill,

02:27 but actually if you listen to the lyrics of the majority of the songs that are drill,

02:32 it's going to be advertising and encouraging violence,

02:36 it's going to be encouraging carrying guns and knives, wearing balaclavas.

02:40 So if you're listening to that 24/7, what you listen to often comes out in your choices and your actions.

02:47 So a typical No More Knives tour, we come to a region like this week, we've come to Blackpool.

02:52 We'll invite five schools onto that tour, we will see them Monday through Thursday

02:58 and we will deliver one hour lessons to entire year groups.

03:02 So at the end of the day we've seen every student in every school.

03:05 And then on the Friday we invite every student to a concert, it's our finale.

03:10 It's great, the kids have met the bands, they've got in touch with them,

03:13 they've followed them on social media, so they've got a positive band that they can follow moving forward.

03:19 If you put rappers and singers in front of school kids, whatever time of day, you're going to get their attention.

03:25 And once you've got their attention, you've got a platform to speak from.

03:29 Now obviously knife crime is a serious issue, so we don't go in by ourselves,

03:34 we work with the local police and council, so we have a police officer in every single one of our lessons.

03:39 They actually present on the law and we have the fun, but we also have that multimedia presentation.

03:46 Yes, we want to have fun with the young people, but we've got a serious matter

03:50 and our job is to inform, equip and empower all students to make really healthy choices around this hot topic of knife crime.

03:57 [no audio]

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