Knife Crime

Knife crime continues to cause serious harm to victims and creates fear in our communities.

  

The Home Office is dedicated to supporting you in your local anti-knife crime campaigns. It Doesn’t Have to Happen (IDHTH) is a national campaign which aims to support and deliver anti-knife crime initiatives throughout England and Wales.

Conceived by the Home Office and developed by young people, the campaign’s main objective is to reduce the possession and use of knives among young people by facilitating peer-to-peer messaging. We want young people to understand the consequences of knife crime - for themselves, their families and their communities. We want them to say ‘no to knives’ and have a positive influence on each other.

By providing tools, materials and support to young people, parents and carers, professionals and local campaigners, our aim is to empower people to work effectively at community level to put an end to knife crime. Through this empowerment, we want young people, parents and carers to ‘own’ the campaign, showing them that the solutions are in their hands, and drawing on notions of ‘respect’ and ‘courage’ to create a culture of intolerance towards knives.

Our approach is to unite local and national action, and to use local efforts to amplify the national campaign voice. We want campaigners to use their local knowledge of people and places to bring about change on the ground; to help deliver national messages with maximum impact; and to help build momentum and support to create a united front against knife crime.

This website   (http://www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/stopknifecrime/get_involved_what.htm) provides ideas, advice, support, access to campaign materials and best practice on how to engage young people and tackle knife crime in your area.

Through your efforts, we want to use local activities to amplify national campaign messages, and to encourage people up and down the country to unite against knife crime.