The Knife Angel arrives in Northampton
Tragedy presented in Art
The iconic 27-feet-tall statue will be visiting Northampton as part of its nationwide tour to highlight the issue of knife crime in the UK.
The statue, which was designed by Alfie Bradley at the British Ironwork Centre (BIC) in Oswestry, has been created from over 100,000 knives and blades confiscated by the UK’s 43 police forces.
The Knife Angel has been brought to the town by West Northants Council (WNC), C2C Social Action and the Office of Northamptonshire Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner (OFPCC). The Northampton Town Community Trust is a partner working with these organisations to help raise awareness about this issue.
COMMENT
Knife crime is a tragic fact of modern inner-city Britain. The sheer number of knives confiscated in just 4 years, should ring alarm bells with everyone, parents, young people and society as a whole. This is a vicious circle that will never end, unless the cycle of victims, fearing knife crime, carry knives and them become aggressors themselves.
It would not be enough to simply imprison people for carrying a knife, because that could punish those who have taken to carrying a knife, because they are living in fear.
What is the solution?
There must be a gradual de-escalation of knives, of course, initially with searches conducted en-mass, in areas that have the most knife crime, however, everyone caught with a knife, must not simply be punished, nor should they walk away, society needs an organised programme to stop this circle of aggression at its very source, otherwise the circle of aggressor and victim will continue with increasingly tragic consequences.
They should arrest anyone carrying a knife and throw away the key!
I understand how you feel John, but what if your son felt so threatened by others, that he were to take it upon himself to carry a knife, with every intention of just ‘protecting himself’ and he were arrested, what would you do?
This is a chronic social problem, resulting in little or no positive action to deal with the root cause, be it gangs, disenfranchised young people, or just spontaneous violence. I don’t know the answer, but society needs to address this collectively.
Valid point, sounds like you’re referring to the storyline in Eastenders, with the young boy, if you watch it of course!
Yes it does and yes I have seen that storyline, I do believe that it has accurately demonstrated one example of the victim-aggressor-victim cycle. If anything, I feel that more traction could have been created with that storyline, because it is happening everywhere, as we speak.
Something needs to be done about this!
I totally agree, but it is not someone else’s problem, it is our society, our street, our children, this is a social responsibility that rests upon everyone’s shoulders.
This is so sad!
Something needs to be done about this!