New knife crime strategy launched in Leicester

Residents in Leicester have helped to shape the Leicester Knife Crime and Serious Violence Strategy.

The strategy aims to support young people with training and employment opportunities. It also aims to enhance the feeling of safety in communities and ensure that young people have trusted sources of support.

Leicester City Council announced that they will commit £250,000 of City Council funding towards knife crime prevention work, alongside a further £200,000 from other sources including the police and crime commissioner’s office and the local Violence reduction network (VRN), an alliance of organisations and communities which coordinate the local response to serious violence.

Cllr Kirk Master, assistant city mayor for neighbourhoods, said: ‘We decided right from the start that we wanted to put community concerns, ideas and solutions at the heart of our plans for tackling knife crime and serious violence.

‘With that in mind, we created an innovative community-led, partnership steering group that designed and conducted a series of community conversations across city neighbourhoods to build relationships, share ideas and learn from residents across Leicester, including those who have had personal experience of knife crime.

‘The resulting strategy takes into account what we learned from those conversations, and will focus on working with young people, creating safer neighbourhood spaces and increasing communication between local groups so that communities can fully engage with this ongoing problem and help us to tackle it.’

The funding will also be used for peer mentoring programmes and education initiatives to prevent offending, as well as creating a post for a community safety coordinator.

The council will launch a pilot programme aimed at engaging with people who are already involved with gangs in order to help them change their lifestyles.

In related news, charities, volunteer and community groups that work to tackle food poverty in Swansea can now apply for grants from the Council to support their work.

Photo by Jamie Hunt