Should parents be held more accountable to tackle teenage knife crime?

I've been saying this for ages. Not just for knife crimes. And yes, I've had teenagers. Until parents start checking their children's rooms (for knives) and what they are looking at and who they are talking to online, where they are at night etc, nothing is going to change. I know they aren't using kitchen knives, but the knives they are using that they carry on a daily basis are kept hidden at home. There is a big problem near me with young teenagers roaming the streets in the early hours breaking into cars, and trying doors to find houses to burgle. I absolutely think their parents should be held responsible. Until this happens, nothing will change.

As an other poster said: Address the root cause - poverty, grooming, mental health concerns -

Aren't they things for parents to address? Who should be addressing these issues?

Move?

No. Absolutely not.

Punishing and penalising parents doesn't help anything.
Families need help and support, listening ears, and education. Not threats and blame.

I bet you a million that you do not know what your DC are up to every minute of the day. And what mischief they are planning to do with their friends.

If you wish, yes parents should be responsible if they buy their DC a machete or sword and then go off to harm / kill someone... but the chopping knife from your kitchen? Nope.

The only thing you can do is, to teach your DC to choose their friends wisely and be confident in themselves, but even that is not bullet proof.

As an other poster said: Address the root cause - poverty, grooming, mental health concerns -

Yes, poor parenting can often be partly the cause of teen knife crime but not always in ways that can be prosecuted. Mostly just life circumstances which haven't been handled well but are hard to define in law.
Eg single parent works shifts meaning the kid is left to their own devices a lot leaving them vulnerable to negative outside influences (gangs). No court is going to prosecute the parent because they didn't spend enough time with the child in this situation.
Or maybe the single parent escaped a domestic abuse situation. Teen child is a victim of trauma themselves and living with a parent who understandably struggles with supporting them through it, again leaving them vulnerable to gang influence or feeling like they need a knife for protection. The parent at fault is the one who caused the trauma in the first place, but they are likely already in prison or have disappeared somewhere and won't/ can't be prosecuted.
The only way the parent if a perpetrator of knife crime should / could be prosecuted is if they knew the person had a knife on them with the intent to commit a specific crime but didn't stop or report them. Even that isn't always possible.

Tackling knife crime properly would mean tacking the causes - poverty, lack of mental health support and awareness amongst teenagers, promotion of alternative ways for teens to get the sense of belonging being in with a group of violent people might give them. Also the need for protection that carrying a knife brings - why do kids feel they need it and how do we change their minds? Probably lots of other social issues contribute as well. Basically, it's not a problem which can be solved by prosecuting parents after the fact. Look at and solve / reduce the impact of reasons kids fall into gang culture - but that is a long term goal where even effective efforts won't show results immediately.

That's because you are a responsible parent with boudaries - that's often lacking in these kids homes.

Thankfully, this sort of crime is pretty rare in my area, but there was an incident a few years ago with a fatal stabbing of a mid teen very early hours of the morning. At first, the news was full of the parents and friends saying how this was a shock, the child was 'well liked', a 'good boy', somewhere along the line a parent or step parent refered to him as a 'loveable rogue'...read into that what you will. Anyway, the trial revealed that this 'good boy' and 'loveable rogue' went out with mates, armed and looking for a fight with strangers. They picked on a group of lads, one of which got hold of the knife and stabbed this little scrote with his own knife in self defence. The press went very quiet after that.

My point is that dog shit parents are completely deluded about their feral children.

The most recent incident involved an organised crime gang. How can parents act against these groups who will do sbsolutely anything and murder anyone who goes to the police or gets in the way?

It’s not kitchen knives and scissors typically used in knife crime. It’s zombie knives procured illegally. They’re badges of honour. The bigger the better. Locking up kitchen knives and scissors will have 0 impact.

I agree with the PP who said we need to be preventing knife crime, not dealing with it after the fact. The sociological issues that lead to it are what needs to be dealt with. How will pointing the finger at a parent who forgot to take their bread knife off of the draining board when their son had a zombie knife hidden in his trousers going to deal with that?

The boy who was so awfully killed in Woolwich last week had been groomed by gangs since primary school, according to his mother. She was begging for more support from the authorities to keep him away from gangs, but it was insufficient. He was due in court shortly over accusations of carrying a machete. Do you think his Mum had been using that to chop the onions, and he just sneaked it out from the kitchen drawer?

I worked in young offenders for a short time, none of the kids there bar one small group of lads had parents that weren't criminals themselves in some capacity.

We should do all what you suggest and lots of parents are, there are just parents that are also high as a fucking kite supplying their kids with drugs and getting them and their mates to sell them as well. They don't care.

Poverty, lack of education, generational unemployment, drug abuse and addiction, these are the reasons why

As someone has already said. Knife crime is usually zombie knives, machetes etc rarely a kitchen knife. They are purchased online and rarely kept in the home usually hidden in bushes, bin sheds etc. locking up kitchen knives won’t stop this. Community groups work with police to do weapon sweeps but the more known these are the more things are moved. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as locking up kitchen knives. The only knife crime I’ve seen kitchen knives used in is domestic crime

i could be wrong be I would imagine some if not most of the knives used in crime are not from their mums kitchen drawer, thinking of zombie knives and those they have bought and hid in their rooms. Therefore even locking knives away makes no difference

I don’t agree with the body of your post though I agree with the title only. The boy (Kelyan Bokassa) who was stabbed on a bus recently, his mum said he was groomed by gangs since the age of 6. Sorry but what kind of shitty childhood did he have, that 3rd parties had access to him to be able to groom him? She herself should have done more to intervene and prevent him from wielding machetes at 14.

I have about 5 knives, countless pairs of scissors, blades for razors for shaving, sharpeners, lots of mirrors that can be broken for a sharp edge.

while we are at it, we would have to ban anything that would be a potential weapon. Impossible. The root causes of young people carrying knives needs to be the focus.

Poverty is the key…

The reason the kids are using knives is probably BECAUSE of their parentage. Not a prayer there.

So why don’t you check their location every time your children ask to leave the house? Why don’t you lock them away so they can’t be taken during the night? How often do you search their bedrooms for knives they have brought into the home?

Gangs target vulnerable young people. Your children are not vulnerable. Not all families have parents who are able to care for them, provide money, support etc. inadequate mental health support means many people can’t parent as perhaps they would like, or two parents need to work in the evenings. A multitude of reasons.

In the US case you cite, didn’t the parents actually buy the firearm for their DC?

UK already has considerably stricter gun control than the US

Some types of knives are already banned, and a parent supplying one of those to their DC is likely to face charges.

But it’s wholly unrealistic to expect every home to have the equivalent of a gun safe for their kitchen knives and scissors

So you currently have no idea if your children, who live in an area where carrying a knife is fairly common, are carrying knives?

In the cases in the US, Ethan Crumbley for example, the parents had provided the weapon. The Crumblys bought their son the gun for a present, lying to staff at the store when they did so. Jennifer Crumbly took her son shooter as a hobby.

Then they did other things that were neglectful. Ignoring delusions and not taking the advice of the school counsellor and then not removing him on the day.