Contextual Research - knife crime ( facts and statistics)

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/04/the-stop-race-police-traffic/


https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/uk-knife-crime-police-gang-violence-stabbings-record-figures-a8589626.html



The type of genre my short film is drama and crime with a bit of action I would say . I am making a short film about a single guy who starts off as a normal person but then as he grows older he meets people and he is easily influenced by the "gang lifestyle" and away from his "church lifestyle " which drives him to make a serious decision which could impact his life forever . A study has found that gangs are moving away from “postcode” rivalries to expand into more business orientated groups focusing on dealing in Class A drugs such as cocaine. The largest religious groupings are Christians (48.4 per cent) , this is the religion I have chosen for my actor to do . The research I have gathered is about the rise in knife crime in England , according to the metropolitan police the number of knife crime that has happened has hit a new record , the amount of homicides have increased about 14 per cent this could be due to the increase of gang violence and knife crime , the wider world has been effected by gang violence , gang violence has become a political and social problem , because of how much an impact it has made on the world. In London there has been a various increase in stabbings occurring  in London due to gang related behaviour . Due to all this knife crime and gang violence , it leaves people in fact young people in critical conditions , which has led the police to finally take interest in stopping gang violence / knife crime not just in the UK but in London also , police has now decided they need these to change fast .Its known that 90% of knife crime offenders were male this happened around 2017 , of those crimes that actually caused serious injuries , 78% of victims are male . " And according to a report by the uk parliament , 21% of 21,044 cases of knife possession across the country involved children between the ages of 10 to 17 , so the majority of people that are involved in knife crime are even within possession of knifes are children that should be in school or are in school but carrying knives . My short film is called life behind the mask , I have found out some research to link to the title " most gang members, masked and armed " this could connote that they don't want to show their true identity . Around 64% of people in London  have been surrounded by gangs of youths wearing balaclavas, had individuals jumping on appliances and suffered aggressive verbal abuse /violence.

Here is a bar graph to show the number of knife offences that have happened in England and wales and as you can see the number goes up every single year , it just seems be an on going thing , in 2018 was the highest amount of offences that were occurring . According to BBC News knives are highly used for assault and armed robbery , having a knife on you means your either out to threaten someone or cause some type of trouble , knives are very much classified as a deadly weapon if you just stabbed someone in correct place you could kill them instantly . The amount of homicides recorded the weapon described was a sharp instrument , including knives and broken bottles . Due to a lot of knife crime happening around the UK , there has been thousands of hospital admissions sometimes the wounds are so deep  some wont able to be saved which was quite unfortunate , because their life was taken by a serious act of evil .

      



This red bar chart shows the knife crime injuries between August 2015 - August 2016 in different areas of London and if you compare to of the different towns fro example Lambeth and Brent then you can see that in Lambeth the knife injuries were around 105 and in Brent it was about 65 so therefore that's about 40 more injuries than Brent , so this could mean because of areas , for example they were saying postcode wars which could suggest if your from a particular area , people automatically want to stab you because you are from rival areas , this bar chart could also indicate that when you get stabbed its more likely that will sustain quite an intense injury . People get serious injuries in these particular London boroughs . mainly around south and west London is where majority of these incidents happen  . Another fact would be knives put so many young lives in the hospital , this bar chart shows people under 24 which in my opinion is outrageous . In 2019 the offences involving a knife has completely tripled and has been more brutal as the years has continued almost 60 % more than 2014 .

Met police say the number of gang violence has reduced over the years when it comes to violent crimes etc. ,as you can see from the line graph that statement appears to be true .The line is gradually decreasing which could link back to knife crime because people that carry knives are usually in a gang so if gang violence is showing major decreasing then therefore knife crime wouldn't be so distinctive and quite on going especially in the uk . The met police recorded gang violence as a criminal offence which is recorded daily .