The new BBC documentary “Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis” could not have come at a more appropriate time. The number of knife-related deaths in Britain among ages 13 to 19 has increased dramatically over the last decade, from 56% to 83%.
Reports of such senseless violence have become commonplace.
Highlighting rising knife crime in Somerset, Bedfordshire, and Sussex — which are whiter and more rural — implies a trend without comparing absolute rates.
In early January, 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa was killed on a London bus after two machete-wielding attackers — themselves both teens — stabbed him 27 times. Weeks later, 12-year-old Leo Ross was stabbed to death in Birmingham while walking home from school; his alleged assailant was 15. In June, three teenagers were charged with the stabbing death of 14-year-old Ibrahima Seck in Manchester.
Actor Elba, who himself grew up in crime-ravaged East London, launched a campaign to eradicate knife violence in early 2024. Now comes this documentary, which follows the “Thor” star around the country as he talks to people behind the grim statistics.
A teachable moment
Elba interviews victims, offenders, and trauma doctors. Along the way, he meets politicians and senior police officers in an attempt to devise a new, more interventionist approach to law and order — a way to stop these young men from resorting to knives in the first place.
It’s apparently also important to Elba to clear up certain stereotypes associated with stabbings. A pivotal moment in the documentary comes when the actor seeks out the sister of Harold Pitman, a white 16-year-old who was stabbed to death in London last New Year’s Eve.
Here, Elba can’t help but turn the meeting into a teachable moment, gently reminding Tayla Pitman that the majority of knife-crime perpetrators are white. “When Harry was killed,” Tayla confirms, “[people said] ‘I bet it was a black person,’ and it wasn’t — it was another white boy.”
Those surprised by the race of Harry’s killer were doubtless also flummoxed by the recent harrowing Netflix series “Adolescence,” which chooses to address this topical issue via the real-time arrest and interrogation of a fictional 13-year-old white killer.
“Adolescence” neatly sidesteps the issue of race altogether by making the killer’s victim a female classmate, also white. The violence here stems from “toxic masculinity” and influencers like Andrew Tate, among other 2025 boogeymen.
RELATED: Netflix sounds an alarm with painful ‘Adolescence’
‘Adolescence’ co-creator and star, Stephen Graham. John Nacion/Getty Images
Misleading statistics
The Guardian’s review of “Our Knife Crime Crisis” approvingly repeats a statistic cited in the documentary: “The film immediately tackles common misconceptions around knife crime as a problem within black and brown urban communities, when in fact 69% of perpetrators are white, and it is spreading fastest in Somerset, Bedfordshire, and Sussex.”
But where does this statistic come from? A cursory search turns up no clear source. Dig a little deeper, and the closest match appears to be nationwide conviction data for knife possession — not overall knife crime. In that context, around 69% of those convicted are white.
Moreover, highlighting rising knife crime in Somerset, Bedfordshire, and Sussex — which are whiter and more rural — implies a trend without comparing absolute rates.
Urban centers like London, Birmingham, and Manchester still have higher overall knife-crime numbers. The regions named may have seen percentage increases, but from much lower baselines.
An uncomfortable truth
More pertinent statistics come from the London Assembly: “Despite making up only 13% of London’s total population, black Londoners account for 45% of London’s knife murder victims, 61% of knife murder perpetrators, and 53% of knife crime perpetrators.” Moreover, the Times finds that the majority of these victims and perpetrators are under the age of 24.
Anyone who, like Elba, sincerely wishes to understand this issue, must first face an uncomfortable truth: Black teenagers are considerably overrepresented in knife-crime statistics.
That mentioning this truth in public is discouraged, to say the least, impedes any practical attempts to prevent knife crime.
Failure to police
Take the example of stop and search, which is generally seen as a highly effective method of removing weapons from the streets. London Mayor Sadiq Khan opposes the use of this operational strategy, claiming baseless charges of “structural racism” and racial profiling. As a result, the use of stop and search in the capital has decreased by 44% since 2022.
New data published in January reveals the arrest rate has dropped in part due to a dramatic reduction in the use of stop and search. Between 2018 and 2023, the number of under-18s arrested for knife offenses fell by 33%, yet offenses rose. The London Metropolitan Police conducted 118,688 searches in the year ending January 2025, roughly a quarter fewer than the previous year. Almost half of them involved black youths under the age of 24.
Given Khan’s belief in the inherent “institutional racism” of his city’s police force, it’s hardly surprising that he would do nothing to reverse the capital’s decline in law enforcement manpower.
Since 2008, the number of police stations serving the capital has decreased from 160 to 36, a 75% reduction. This is despite policing a city of about nine million people. This is expected to drop even further — to 32 (one per London Borough). Meanwhile, budget cuts have led to two-thirds of police stations closing in England since 2010.
With one station for every quarter of a million residents, it’s reasonable to assume that crime has increased. According to the Office for National Statistics, the police recorded 14,577 knife offenses in 2023, a 20% rise from the previous year. With officers constantly burdened with trivial work like recording offensive language as non-crime hate incidents, it is no surprise that knife crime — and all crime — goes unsolved.
Knives out
If policing is off the table, what’s left?
Elba has a suggestion: Design kitchen knives to have dull points. Such a “solution” is in keeping with the Labour government’s approach.
A little more than a year ago, the U.K. witnessed its most shocking knife crime yet. Seventeen-year-old Axel Rudakubana, a second-generation Rwandan immigrant, entered a children’s Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport and began stabbing. By the time he was subdued, he had brutally slaughtered three girls: Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar, nine.
News of the killings sparked furious protests around the country, fueled by erroneous online reports that Rudakubana was an illegal immigrant and a Muslim. The media was quick to denounce this “misinformation” as the sole culprit of the unrest, while failing to acknowledge the simmering tension built up by decades of unchecked immigration and failed assimilation.
In response to all this, the U.K. government announced a crackdown on knife sales — including a ban on doorstep sales and an age verification for online purchases. It’s part of Labour’s vow to “halve knife crime over the next decade.”
Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Token gestures
Here, it’s perhaps worth stating the obvious: A knife has edges, and people die just as well from being slashed as from being stabbed. During the early 1900s, razors were the weapon of choice for many “razor gangs” throughout Britain. Besides, anything with a point can be used to kill someone. A sharpened stick, fork, corkscrew, or screwdriver can end a life.
A ban will do nothing. Newly manufactured safety knives will not only be ineffective, but no one will buy them, reducing the blade’s aesthetic appeal and function for the law-abiding majority. None of these suggestions will stop the use of weapons on our streets.
While politicians and celebrities make token gestures, teenage boys continue to die in record numbers. We must not fall victim to rose-tinted utopianism, which says we can remedy this problem with more youth clubs and pool tables. If we want to prevent young people from killing each other, we must first increase stop and search and fight the activist ideology that sees the police as a proxy for racialized state oppression.
Drill killers
Then, you must wage a genuine culture war: Go after the drill rappers. I am not advocating for the suspension of civil liberties, but anyone familiar with the genre will recognize that much of this music celebrates particular killings. Mdot, Hypo, and Showkey were all rappers killed between 2016 and 2022. Zone 2, another drill group, mentioned the killing of Sidique Kamara, a.k.a Incognito, in the song “No Censor.”
Many of these murders are related to gang feuds, as they fight over territory related to drug distribution. As such, intervention starts at home. A strong father figure frequently serves as a role model, guiding a young son through his formative years. According to data, 43% of black African children in the U.K. and 63% of children of black Caribbean heritage in the U.K. are raised by single parents. As one reformed gang member told the Daily Telegraph, “I remember a member of a gang once saying to me, ‘If you are not going to raise your children, we will raise them for you.’”
Linguistic pedants have previously chastised me for using the term “epidemic” to characterize the issue of knife crime. It’s not a disease, I’m told. I would argue that young people killing others at record levels for petty squabbles, unpaid drug debts, and arbitrary boundaries on a map IS a disease.
Our cultural elites’ allegiance to these progressive nostrums is dangerous. They will be ineffective. Just like Elba’s suggestion, it’s missing the point.
Idris elba, Culture, Drill rappers, London, Uk, Sadiq khan, Police, Knife crime, Netflix, Adolescence, Axel rudakubana, Letter from the uk