Cuts Are Deadly →
With each news flash of another young life lost to violence on the streets, I’m reminded of those I knew and grew up with who savagely had their lives taken away from them way too early. Young people full of unrealised potential, unfulfilled dreams and unspoken stories.
Last year there were more than 40,000 offences involving knives across England and Wales – the highest number since 2011. 280 died from stabbings. And we’ve had a succession of heart-wrenching deaths from stabbings just this month.
These calamitous deaths are almost entirely preventable, and they’re the inevitable consequence of systemic dysfunction and wilful ignorance within this Tory government’s institutionally short-sighted policies.
The media often paint this out as a ‘race’ issue or a crisis within the black community. As I speak - I am not a voice of black people, but I am a black voice. What this is, is a crisis of deprivation. A crisis of few opportunities, no alternatives and dangerous environments. A crisis of insufficient investment through our entire education system and the conscious dismantling of youth services across the country.
And yes - young black men are disproportionately more likely to be unemployed, found in prisons, in failing schools and in child poverty. A series of overlapping disadvantages further compounded by year after year of disastrous ‘cuts-across-the-board’ Tory policy.
Whilst in London, the stats show that most of the victims and suspects of knife crime are black (victims 44%, suspects 48%), for the rest of the UK they are overwhelmingly white (victims 89%, suspects 81%). The truth is, this is a plague that affects all of us. The tragic deaths of the two teenagers, Jodie Chesney and Yousef Ghaleb Makki, over the weekend should bring this fact home even more. This is not a race issue.
Our parks, villages, towns, and cities; our communities should be havens of safety.
But that safety is sacrificed and knowingly put at risk by politicians who ideologically cut, cut and cut away at community police numbers, local government budgets, and services for young people.
Research by the YMCA found that funding for youth services across England has fallen by £737m since the Tories came into power. This is a cut of 62%. Hundreds of youth centres have closed, thousands of youth workers have lost their jobs, and more than a hundred thousand places for young people have vanished into thin air.
Sajid, Theresa, put down the knife - stop the cuts, increase investment and watch the violence tumble.
Pseudo-solutions historically deeply mired in racial prejudice, like criminalising drill music, ramping up stop and search or increasing the number of incarcerations and expanding prisons isn’t going to solve this, nor is charity a permanent solution. We are in need of a concrete and radical upheaval of the foundations of our social policy.
There must be a genuine commitment to deal with the extensive fear of crime and lack of trust that permeates our communities and is the primary cause of knife-carrying. We must do more to reverse the social conditions that are de facto fertile grounds for weapon-possession.
To the young men who feel the need to carry - I understand your fear. Hope has been torn from you, the present and the future made bleak for you and your safety neglected. But while we continue to push the government to commit to proper solutions for this mess imposed on you - please leave the knife at home. It's not worth it. It’s never worth it.
Let's be clear. The loss of a single young person is a loss for each and every one of us. The government are in denial - and will point fingers in any direction instead of admitting fault and culpability.
We must keep speaking up, speaking out and fighting every day. Until the deadly cuts are reversed. Until every young person in this country is safe.
Magid 👊🏾💚
#CutsAreDeadly
#NeverWorthIt
#KnifeCrime
#YouthViolence