2024-08-27 12:45:29
- Possessors of sharps to kill have 30 days to get rid of them, then face jail
- In 2023, there were 50,500 such crimes – 140 per day
To tackle rising knife crime, police in England have announced a major scheme to hand in dangerous sharp objects that can be used to kill. Their owners have one month to give them to police stations for a fee or leave them anonymously in special metal containers placed in public places.
The reason is that, from midnight on August 26, new legislation came into force in England, declaring certain types of knives illegal. Specifically, we are talking about machetes, zombie knives and those whose blades are over 20 centimeters. Usually young people get inspired to buy them and hurt with them from movies they watch.
In recent years crimes with sharp objects continuously are increasing in United Kingdom
In 2023, they were 50,500, or nearly 140 per day. Two Bulgarian boys also died after being stabbed. 21-year-old student Gabriel Stoyanov lost his life in London. He was attacked by three boys with whom he had a fight on a bus.
20-year-old Tsvetomir Genov was stabbed to death by the new boyfriend of the mother of his child while walking his 16-month-old son in a stroller in the English city of Salisbury.
“Bringing in a ban on zombie-style knives is just the first step in our ambitious, targeted plan to halve sharps crime within a decade. It will be followed by the outlawing of other types of knives, such as ninja swords,” Deputy Minister for Policing Diana Johnson said.
According to her, it is now very important that their owners safely hand them over to the police. Therefore, they are also given a one-month amnesty, as well as different options on how to do it. They can be parted with for a fee of £10 each, but must hand over at least 10 knives for this compensation system to be triggered as it requires more specialized logistics. Their holder must download a special form from the website of the Ministry of the Interior. In it to describe how many and what knives he will hand over. After doing so, he is required to pack them together with the form in a box to take to the nearest police station. There to file a claim for compensation. He can also claim a larger amount if he can prove with a document how much he bought them for.
The sale of knives to under-18s has been banned in England for years.
Even the kitchen ones are now available in locked display cases
in the shops. They are equipped with a bell that is answered by a salesperson. He is obliged to verify the age of the buyer before opening them and allowing him to choose and pay for a knife.
All this is being done to stem the avalanche of stabbings that some experts have compared to an epidemic among the Island’s young people. The latest shocking case was last month, when a 17-year-old killed three little girls and injured six more during a summer school. The inexplicable
bloody attack resulted to mass anti-immigrant protests,
after it became clear that the killer’s parents were from Rwanda.
“We suggest people do the right thing. To hand over the knives they have. To help us make our streets safer and save lives. We can’t do this alone. Political, police and community leaders must work together to end the knife crime epidemic and offer a better future for our young people,” explained Diana Johnson.
For this reason, dozens of metal containers have already been placed in large cities. Knives can be disposed of completely anonymously in them. The deadline to do this is September 24. The police will then have the power to arrest and prosecute the possessors of dangerous knives, with the penalty being imprisonment.