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It’s become our national debate, our national emergency, an almost weekly news story – the rise in knife crime, stabbings and deaths caused by individuals or gangs on our streets. The loss of so many young lives not just in London but up and down the country, in both deprived and affluent areas; 10 teenagers killed this year alone with the most recent fatal stabbings that of 17 year old Jodie Chesney and Yousef Makki.

There’s something about the physical brutality of a stabbing, the proximity required between 2 people, the violent piercing of flesh which makes knife stabbings particularly horrific. Power and vulnerability go hand in hand. When asked, the most common reason teenagers carry a knife is because it makes them feel safer, when you’ve had a brush with violence, you think a knife will protect you. Or when the adult isn’t providing you with security, the young feel they have to defend themselves even with the risk of becoming a victim themselves.

The public debate has become tense with increase in attacks attributed to the effects of police cuts, austerity and questions around school exclusions. But investment and resources aside, we need to be more concerned about the domestic and social environment in which young people find themselves. Many of us take our families, our jobs and our homes for granted, they add structure and purpose to our lives. We can’t imagine living a life of crime whereas for some, it becomes their only identity. As one young Londoner said,` No-one is born with a knife, but what people are also not born with is purpose. People where we live, we don’t have no purpose." Economic deprivation may be a root cause but sometimes so is emotional deprivation, the feeling that no one cares, whether it’s the family, community or the state. When you feel like that, you have little to lose and for some, a random killing and a short prison sentence is no big deal.

But people are not random statistics on our streets. The Islamic tradition of commanding good and forbidding wrong includes having mercy upon the young. Mercy translates into giving our children hope, safety, discipline and love. And when parents are unable to provide the glimmers of a better world, to some extent we should all share moral responsibility, shoulder some of the burden, because our children deserve better. It seems to me that we have to do more joined up thinking around our homes, environments and mental support services. Knife crime is complex with devastating consequences. But if we don’t engage in keeping our streets safe, we’ll continue to have polarised towns and cities, communities trapped in fear and suspicion and most tragically more and more parents who will have to live with the grief of a dead child.

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