Adeela Shafi is the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol East and a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of the West of England.
The statistics say that knife and gun crime is no more prevalent than at any other time. But go behind the statistics to the people: we have on average one person a day in the UK being killed by knife crime. Now I don’t know about you, but to me that is a lot in so called civilised society.
Much of this knife and gun crime is being committed by young people on other young people. So what is going on? Why are young people so intent on carrying knives, guns, doing drugs, binge drinking and being part of a gang? Why is "gang culture" now an official term used by politicians and sociologists alike?
No doubt one of the biggest fears facing many parents is that their son, or even daughter, may get embroiled in such a gang. Drink, drugs, knives, guns, gangs… all these terms make me coil in horror and I am already worried about my 7-year-old son.
So what is it that is making our young boys and indeed some girls feel that a gang is the only way to earn respect. Respect is a word used all too loosely and too often people find it difficult to define, but we all know what we mean by it. Interviews with young people have cited it as a reason for carrying a knife, a reason to be involved in drugs, a justification for a criminal act. Binge drinking… to drown reality, lose any inhibitions that might limit what they do. High on drugs… because to have a good time you must be "out of it".
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