Confronting knife crime - Why have we become so very violent?

IN the nine days since Mayo-based Garda Daryl Mullen suffered a life-threatening knife attack there have been three knife-related deaths and a series of other lethal but thankfully non-fatal attacks around the country.

The figures are staggering and show an escalation in violence and aggression – whatever their source – that demands our full attention.

The weekend tragedy in Bray, where two young men died and another two people suffered very serious injuries, and the spate of stabbings and assaults in Mayo, underline how commonplace the use of knives is.

Just a week ago father-of-two Francis Heneghan, 24, was stabbed to death in a laneway in Kiltimagh, Co Mayo. Four men were injured in two attacks in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, over this weekend just past.

The Central Statistics Office tell us that the number of knife murders increased more than fivefold, from five to 32 since 2003.

Though efforts to curtail the availability of knives and other edged weapons have been made these seem doomed to failure as knives are such an everyday item. It might be more rewarding to focus on the frame of mind – altered or otherwise – that allows people to feel free to use knives against others.

However, these efforts will have to be considerably more successful than aspects of the “How Big Do You Feel?” campaign, aimed at young people, which was launched last February.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern promised then that this campaign would build a presence on social networking sites but it has been a spectacular failure. The campaign’s Bebo site has had 329 visitors. Not even one was engaged enough to take part in the online poll. The campaign’s Facebook site has 39 members, while the campaign on Twitter just a pathetic 16 members.

There are 170,000 people in the target age group – 18 to 20 – in this country so this is an abysmal failure to communicate the campaign’s message.

The response is understandable though, as the site – www.howbigdoyoufeel.ie – has not been updated and refers to just one public meeting held before the minister launched the campaign. The sites reveal no details of the public meetings or road shows. The online strand of this campaign has been little more than a PR exercise and a complete waste of public funds.

This is not the only official response that bears little scrutiny. Just last year Central Criminal Court judge Mr Justice Paul Carney said some sentences had been handed out to reflect growing concern over fatal knife crime. However, in several cases the Court of Criminal Appeal reduced them significantly.

We can ignore the real issues behind this trend and waste a lot of time, energy and resources trying to curtail knife sales or we can address the core problems which seem obvious enough.

The abuse of alcohol and other drugs is central. No matter what the drinks industry might try to convince us of alcohol misuse sparked some of the knife attacks of the last ten days. And, much as we might like to pretend that they do not, violent films and computer games do have a role in desensitising people, making some believe that extreme violence is an acceptable reaction to minor events.

We have to confront these challenges because if we do not we can expect the fivefold increase in knife murders recorded over the last four years to be surpassed.