Sheffield crime tsar pledges action on knife crime

It’s a dispiriting thought that whether our children live in villages or urban centres, they should be anxious in this way.

In South Yorkshire, we are determined to tackle this.

Firstly, the police have a role. Many knife incidents are a by-product of drug-dealing gang rivalries. This is why the police are targeting the gangs. We can expect more disruption of their activities and arrests in the coming months.

But secondly, we must get upstream of crime and prevent young people being drawn into gangs in the first place.

This is why last year we set up a violence reduction unit. The VRU is longer-term, looking at the root causes of violence. It brings together organisations who can make a contribution – such as councils,chool exclusion units, the NHS, voluntary bodies and the police. If we can understand the causes of violence, we can make interventions that will bring it down. We can also avoid interventions that don’t help.

We are just completing our findings – where violence happens, what causes people to become violent and what interventions work in reducing it.

Some of it is no surprise. We recognise the hotspots, we know about the lack of youth activities, the dropping out of school, the lack of jobs. But some of it is a big challenge – because many young people are exposed to violence from a very young age. They are raised in families where violent and aggressive behaviour is the norm.

For me, the most important thing is recognising or discovering what can make a real difference. Some understanding will come from those who have experienced violence and learnt how to behave differently, including young people - we can learn from them.

This is where our time, energy and resources must be focused. We have to get this right. We cannot have another generation of young people being alienated from mainstream society and drawn to violence. We cannot have another generation putting knife crime at the top of the list of things that worry them most.