To think it is naive to think there is no knife crime near us because it is a "nice" area?

[hidinginthenightgarden]

I was speaking to someone today who said they didn't understand why people didn't let their kids (as young as 6/7) play on the streets these days. Our housing estate is new build and huge (800 houses) and like a warren. The main reason my son isn't allowed to play out is that I'd never bloody find him if I needed him to come home early.
I sugested that the current issue with teen behaviour and knife crime may have an effect but he said "no, not around this estate". I was a bit surprised he thought like this and told him so.
An expensive area is no less likely to have teenagers causing trouble and its not a gated community so nothing is stopping people coming into the estate from other areas. There are a few local schools within 10 -15 minutes so kids could come to the estate with friends even if those living on the estate were somehow immune to the problems other areas may have.
Whilst our city is one with a low crime rate and we don't appear to have gangs of youths hanging round the streets, is it naive of them to think it couldn't possible happen on our estate just because it is nice?

I think most knife crimes (probably not all) are aimed at a particular person in relation to a grudge of some sort. So I don't think they would go and attack a 6 year old in a park. However a 16 yo would possibly be less safe?
We let DS play 'out' at park, nip to shop etc but probably from 9 onwards - I think 6 might be a bit young.

Due to county lines the drug problem is wider than people think & so 'naice' areas can be just as unsafe as cities.

our village has never had had any thing like that

ive been here nearly 40 years my parents 60 my grandparents 80

there is no crime here at all.

im a small welsh village in the valleys of wales and it really is like how the old films portrait of welsh village life is

anyone watched stella?it like that here but more innocent

I mean, I lived in Moss Side for many many years and now I live in a small town in the Dales. I have to say it's clearly NOT "as unsafe" . It's much much safer. There's hugely less crime. The kids here are in hugely less danger. We can show it easily with data.

I understand not wanting to slag on inner cities. I'm from there and I support this motive. But let's not veer into hypercorrections that make no sense. There are differences between places. Risk assessments should change based on the context and the data.

We live in an outer London borough but have little knife crime in the Borough let alone on our road.
Have a look at your local crime maps and see how reasonable your fears are?
My DD has played out in the street since she was 8 it’s a quiet road and she stays together with her friend next door.

Apparently there's not much knife crime in my fairly.rough working class town in the Northwest well according to a report I read in the local paper anyway ,of course it can happen anywhere but I thought it was mainly gang related?

The lovely little boys that I went to school with who have now been lost to gangs and prison and straight up shot to death, did not do so because they were inherently bad and all that would have happened the same anywhere, you know? It's an interaction between them and the situation they found themselves in. It's a card game and we're all sitting at different tables and playing with different hands.

When I was 16 my friend was shot to death on his doorstep - mistaken identity. He was just 17 years old and was at college and had plans and that was all just ended for nothing. This situation has never happened where I live now. It's not a risk for the schoolboys I see, and it would be crazy to live as if it were. Just like I don't need to test the water that comes out of the tap because kids in Flint, Michigan are at risk from theirs. Our government might be shits but I don't think they're lead poisoning our kids!

Well being a posh area doesn't make you completely immune to knife crime and anti social behaviour but some areas (often poorer areas) o have much much worse rates of knife crime than others so you're obviously being ridiculous to say it's "no less likely". In any case a much bigger risk to young kids playing out is cars not knife weilding teenagers.

I live in knife crime central, but my kids walked to and from school from 8 or 9.

‘Gangs’ doesn’t mean ‘gangs of teenagers on street corners’ it means something akin to organised crime around drugs.

The vast majority of teenagers are perfectly lovely, and far more likely to be direct or indirect (all this prejudice and discrimination against them) victims than kids.

Kids playing out are more vulnerable to the volume and speed of traffic now, and we just don’t do it except in some cul de sacs.

Yes, knife crime could happen anywhere, but the truth is that those caught up in it are generally those caught up in it. And there is much hysteria about it,

Watch out for drug use amongst those naice polite middle class teens and their ‘something in the media’ parents, though

Gone are the days where I'd let my kids play in the street. I wouldn't feel comfortable with it anywhere, nice area or not. You can have nice areas with some really nasty people, you can have shitty areas with some lovely people. Anything can happen.

Despite having almost always lived in low crime areas since having children, I have never and would never allow children to play in the street or hang around in local parks. Nothing to do with knife crime.