Fewer blades found after knife crime crackdown

Published on Monday 18 January 2010 21:45

AN INITIATIVE to deter young people in one of Scotland's most deprived areas from carrying knives has proved successful, with police reporting a fall in the number of individuals found with weapons on their person.

Strathclyde Police said despite a "huge increase" in searches carried out in the Inverclyde area, "far fewer" people are carrying blades.

The area has been chosen for a pilot scheme as part of a Scottish Government initiative to sever the relationship between knife crime and the west of Scotland.

Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill said the "No Knives Better Lives" campaign was having a "huge impact" in the area, and pledged to expand the scheme.

Preliminary research by Strathclyde Police suggests the 500,000 initiative, launched last March, is gradually changing the knife culture in the region, which includes Greenock and Port Glasgow.

The force said that while there had been a 50 per cent increase in the number of people being stopped and searched since last April, the number of individuals carrying weapons had fallen by 15 per cent.

Mr MacAskill was in Port Glasgow to launch a new phase of the campaign which will focus on the choice between "life or knife" that many young people face.

He said: "Far too many lives are lost and people injured though mindless acts of violence – often because of the knife culture that blights some communities."

Robert Brown, his Liberal Democrat counterpart,

said: "Diverting young people away from carrying knives or ever getting involved in gang violence is the most effective way of reducing the grim toll of injury caused by knife crime in Scotland."