[Arbortheus]

I’m fed up of Americans telling me London is full of knife crime when the stats say that it is much worse in the USA.

The situation is even improving, UK homicide rates are at the lowest level in 50 years [1].

Not to mention that the USA has an entire category of gun crime which is a non-issue in the UK.

I swear to you, London is not an unsafe city.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgk86rr0vxyo

[roughly]

Brother, I live in Oakland. To hear it from the media, statistically I’ve been dead for a decade now. This is always the narrative around cities, which is fine, because it keeps away the kinds of people who find my town scary instead of invigorating.

[sixothree]

I got stuck at a table with a Fox News viewer who was absolutely angry about the "situation" in England and Europe. He was so focused on the Muslim immigration epidemic causing people to be unsafe and was greatly concerned about how they treat their women. Yes, I see the irony of a fox news viewer being concerned about how women are treated.

It was eye opening to me just how deeply brainwashed these people are. This wasn't just him parsing news events, it was his world view being shaped with the opinion that these are awful, dangerous, unsafe places, ridden with crime and poverty.

[badgersnake]

It’s all got a bit ridiculous. You can seemingly lie as much as you like on video sharing sites with zero comeback.

[hnlmorg]

There’s no comeback for lying, period.

Though if you happen to tell truths, or even just satire, against certain wealthy people, then you can expect the full fury of those hurt.

[technothrasher]

Eh, that same group of American folks also say that NYC is a violent crime ridden hell hole. I'm a rural guy who actively dislikes cities, but even still I've never actually felt unsafe in the time I've spent in either NYC or London.

[themaninthedark]

I wouldn't say NYC is a hell hole but will say they(locals) don't seem to take crime that serious there, even violent crime.

I was visiting last fall with the family, left the car in the NJ side when taking the ferry to the Statue. They took the train to the hotel and I went to retrieve the car, got a front stage view of a guy using a chain to beat up a security guard at a shopping mall.

Guy had been peeing on the vehicles, guard told him to stop. He took offense at this, got a length of chain and started kicking the door so the guard would tell him to stop. As soon as he came out guy started hitting him over the head with the chain.

Police took a good 15 to 20 minutes to respond, didn't seem interested in looking for the guy. The guard wasn't interested in pressing charges.

Guy was probably homeless and definitely needed mental health but he had the capacity to plan out and execute a violent attack that could have been deadly.

[jjgreen]

Shhh, you should be egging them on with some outlandish tales of a close escape ... then there might be a seat or two in the pubs on a Saturday night ...

[tracker1]

Aren't they trying to ban knives?

[defrost]

Regulate, not ban, not working knives (chef, ropemaker, tech, <reason>), but "zombie" knives and other "flash" used to swing in public and intimidate (subject, say to specific performance reasons, etc.)

Love it, hate it, it's a different mindset to the US approach and ultimatelty falls back on judges using "reasonable behaviour" of common citizens on ominbuses as a yardstick.

[themaninthedark]

A rapper made a great song about this a while ago: https://youtu.be/YeV2cExvnMI?si=ZWhMBC1CDBGZHKNB

Also from the comment section: "knife crime, knife crime, it's ain't about knives"

You're saving that banning/ demonizing locking folding knives when almost all crimes are committed with a common kitchen knife wasnt the solution?!? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!

[defrost]

Heh, great track. I mean it's no Linton Kwesi Johnson dis but it is what it is and that's enough.

Look, no one's a fan of the village idiot juggling lit dynamite on a unicycle in the packed shopping mall, and it's no good for anyone if the bad apples* aren't given a route to better things to do so Roman Law countries tend to have any old excuse laws to give cause to have people questioned as to why they're doing whatever the heck it is that they're doing .. my grandmother pulled up kids all the time like that.

The upside of such things is actually problematic and questionable bahaviour can be shunted in one direction and chefs of any colour, langauge, borough address can walk on proud and free with their knife rolls.

The downside is the watchers and guardians can get a bit enthused and selective in their choices of collar, they can develop little clique's of weirdness and corruption, and the judgy types can get a bit overly judgy about all the wrong things.

The challenge for any community is dealing with all that and having better control over the system .. takes time and focus, 'taint easy.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MVsBS7OZvo

[tracker1]

I can stab you pretty effectively with a screwdriver... it's fucking stupid all around to try to "regulate" knives at all.

[defrost]

Well, sure, you could certainly have a crack at it, you wouldn't be the first to try.

You did rather miss the point of why, and the devil's less in having reason to address potentially violent individuals and groups, far more in the implementations, the biases, the judgements, the feedback on appeals, community support, rehabilitations, restitutions, and that dull stuff.

[tracker1]

You have yet to establish why the premise and effort itself isn't completely asinine at its core. All you've done is spout a stream of progressive gibberish that doesn't consist of a coherent thought as to why banning or limiting knives is a good idea at all. Banning tools won't stop tools from being misused for violent intent, people will only misuse other tools.

> the implementations, the biases, the judgements, the feedback on appeals, community support, rehabilitations, restitutions, and that dull stuff.

What the hell does that even mean? It sounds like an AI hallucination trying to justify giving everyone a participation trophy and straight top grades to go through school even if the individuals don't actually participate or grasp the material being tought.

[defrost]

> You have yet to establish why the premise and effort itself isn't completely asinine at its core.

Reason to stop and question - in itself, not an issue.

> the implementations, the biases, the judgements, the feedback on appeals

Where the problems pile up - the biases of peace keepers, expectations baked into sentencing, resistance to review, etc.

> trying to justify giving everyone a participation trophy

that'd be your hallucination

Maybe wind back the nonsense and strawmanning?

What's your country / state or county that has shaped your outlook on all this?

[Havoc]

They've been trying forever - it's a futile exercise.

[dominotw]

i live in chicago. gun crime is localized to certain parts of city.

Is it the same with knife crime?

[rcxdude]

Violent crimes in general in the UK (at least) are more localised to who you are. Random acts of violence on bystanders are very rare, the vast majority are attacks by someone known to the victim, often gang related.

[badgersnake]

I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never seen any knife crime.

[turkey99]

I’ve never seen any knife crime anywhere.

There isn’t really any location. Its socioeconomic. It’s young black men 16-24 who disproportionately end up dying to knife crime.

[sourcegrift]

What are the root causes behind "socio-economic"?

[geysersam]

There are many. It's an umbrella term for a range of circumstances that tend to be correlated with poverty and social issues.

Low trust in society, few opportunities to improve economic situation, higher prevalence of trauma and ptsd, higher probability of substance abuse, low opportunity cost for going to jail, fewer good role models, worse self esteem, worse education outcomes, worse physical health, higher likelihood of being involved in organized crime, higher likelihood of depending on parallel social structures for safety and protection, etc.

Each can be cause or effect in a self reinforcing network. Picking one single root cause isn't really possible.

[mothballed]

One seems to be culture.

For instance, I was caught between a knife fight on a train, because in one hood some of the culture is it's unacceptable to play another culture's music too loud. A Hispanic guy was playing hispanic music quite loud on the train, as soon as it entered a black neighborhood a black guy informed him it was "his hood" and asked him to stop, which then escalated to both pulling out knives.

I have now learned there are certain socio-economic enclaves where culture has dictated that I must not play my music too loud or I will be stabbed to death.

[frereubu]

In London? Where was this?

[mothballed]

San Diego

[cucumber3732842]

I live in "one of those parts" of "one of those cities" specifically to get away from white (in spirit if not also complexion) people with no real problems (or more specifically, what they do to a local government).

As long as you don't make activities outside of the law a non-negligible source of your income or run with the crowd that does you're fine, and not just for murder or whatever, theft and all sorts of the boring "area under the curve" crime is concentrated around these people too.

[jeffbee]

For homicide this is very correct. You could live dead center in the statistically most violent block of Chicago and still cut your personal risk of being a homicide victim by 1) not being a criminal, and 2) not posting diss raps to your 11 followers on Soundcloud. There are not really dangerous neighborhoods but there are dangerous social networks.

[mothballed]

And not having any vehicle problems, because you usually only are rolling through bad areas to get to better areas. Most people in violent cities have no occasion to stop in violent areas. On one occasion I was forced to work overnight for critical hospital operations in a bad part of town, on my way back my tire went flat and when I was distracted fixing it the locals noticed I was weak and they put a gun to my head.

[doubled112]

I'm also a big believer that "head up, voice down" will reduce your likelihood of becoming a target.

People don't usually bring trouble to themselves for no reason. Don't give them a reason.

[jasomill]

Living in Indianapolis (higher homicide rate than Chicago, but not drastically so), I feel the same way.

And for non-homicide violent crime, you're probably more likely to get jumped on a side street near a bar district than you are in a "bad neighborhood" unless you do something yourself to incite violence.

[TitaRusell]

America is running a disinformation campaign against Europe.

Europe represents democracy and rule of law- something right wing fascists and Christian fundamentalists despise.

Make no mistake we are involved in an ideological war against the US.

[rob_c]

Flight from London is happening. It's already happened in a large way as well.

You don't see cockney anything anywhere there anymore compared to (and as much as you see any transitional regional identify left in) other British cities.

Homicide is on the drop in London but that's not 100% because it's safer. A huge amount is focused on deaths rather than attacks so don't fool yourself that just because they didn't die that nothing happened.

> crime which is a non-issue in the UK.

Nope. Not even close to true. Yes we don't have school shooters. Yes we don't have people exacting "justice" with a loaded barrel. But we do have gun crime and guns are used a LOT as intimidation. I wish I didn't grow up in an area where I know that to be true.

Trying to pretend there's not a problem is wonderful. And in that case I can point you to some very reasonably priced areas which must be perfectly safe and have no social cohesion issues at all regardless of where you're from...

[alexriddle]

Hospital admissions are reliable indicators for violent crime and stabbings in particular - if you get injured you're going to need a doctor and they will record it - and these are going down [1]. There is little to suggest any kind of epidemic or increase in violent crime is going on and the stats on this seem to play out.

What is more of an issue is more antisocial crime such as street robbery or shoplifting. These crimes are much more likely to be snatch and grab, with no violence involved. They still have an impact on the victims but they're not making the city significantly more violent.

[1] https://www.london.gov.uk/london-records-fewest-homicides-ye...

[lazyasciiart]

> Flight from London is happening. It's already happened in a large way as well

None of the people I've known who moved out of London did so because of crime or safety. They almost invariably moved because they could pay for a tiny place in the city and commute for over an hour each way or they could pay the same for a larger place outside the city and commute the same length of time on the train.

[hnlmorg]

Exactly this. It’s what I did and it’s what a not so insignificant number of my friends and colleagues have done too

[nxm]

None of the people you’ve known is not reflective of what may actually be occurring

[frereubu]

But you've not cited any sources either, so don't pretend that you're some paragon of statistical analysis. You've just said things like "I wish I didn't grow up in an area where I know that to be true," which is pure anecdote. Others in this comments thread have provided sources. Why haven't you?

[lazyasciiart]

This opinion is coming to you directly from the burned out debris formerly known as Seattle, so I think I’m pretty good at identifying imaginary disaster zones.

[orf]

> You don't see cockney anything anywhere there anymore

Yes, jellied eels disappearing is because everyone has fled London due to crime. No other reason.

[badgersnake]

> Flight from London is happening.

That’s more to do with cost of living. Rents and house prices are insane.

[rob_c]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g5j3zv9ezo