Campaign To Change Scots’ Attitudes To Knife Crime

A new campaign designed to challenge attitudes towards knife carrying in Scotland – Knives: Let’s Not Scar Another Generation – has been launched. Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson and head of the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan, set a roadshow in motion that will visit areas hard hit by violent crime. In addition to the roadshow, the eight-week £580,000 campaign includes radio, newspaper and bus adverts, outdoor posters and marketing.

Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson said: “Tackling knife crime requires action on a range of fronts. In the past year, we have toughened the law on knife crime, the Crown has toughened prosecution of knife carrying, and we have taken over 12,500 deadly weapons off the street with our first national amnesty. However, we know that enforcement alone cannot solve Scotland’s knife culture. We need to challenge the idea that knife carrying is acceptable or a normal. Those who do should see this as a wake up call because they are sleep-walking into danger.

“Today’s campaign highlights the work which is already being done to rid Scotland’s streets of this problem, while challenging the idea that children need to grow up in a society where knife carrying is normal. We all need to challenge that notion – as politicians and professionals, but also as parents, family members, and friends. Crime in Scotland is falling. Violent crime is now at its lowest level since devolution. However, if we are to reduce that further Government, police and other public services need the help of this generation and their families to create a climate in which respect is earned by the way a person lives their life – and not what they carry in their pocket.”

Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan Head of the Violence Reduction Unit, said: “We have been making concerted efforts to tackle knife carrying in Scotland and we will continue this enforcement until those who think such behaviour is normal learn that it is not. There can be no excuse for carrying a knife and the minority who do should be aware of the potential consequences. If you carry a knife for protection, that means you intend to use it to stab someone and that’s not acceptable. There are individuals who bear the visible scars of violence. Less visible, but just as corrosive, is the effect violence has on communities around Scotland.

“I have said before there is no single solution to Scotland’s knife culture and no single agency on its own can change that culture. The police and other agencies will continue to play their part but we need everyone – brothers, dads, mums, girlfriends – to challenge this culture and so that together we can change it for the next generation. Scotland has never shirked a challenge, no matter how daunting and this is the challenge for our generation. If we don’t do something together about it, who will and if we don’t do it now when we will we start?”

The campaign is part of a range of work by the Executive, VRU, police and Crown Office in the past year to clamp down on the problem of knives in Scotland. This includes new legislation to toughen the law on knife carrying, a national knives amnesty and two Safer Scotland enforcement campaigns the second of which is still ongoing.

The campaign will highlight the enforcement, diversionary and preventative work which is under way to address this problem, while emphasising that everyone must challenge the notion that knife crime is normal or acceptable.