It would barely constitute news in Bogotá or downtown Johannesburg, but in London there is little else politicians, pundits or parents can talk about.
Twenty teenagers have been stabbed to death in the British capital so far this year, a toll that is rapidly approaching the 27 killed during the whole of 2007.
The killings — covered extensively on 24-hour TV — appear to be the result of a number of factors, including increased gangland activity and the fact that more teenagers are carrying knives to protect themselves or to intimidate others.
Newspapers pore over the dangers in banner headlines. ”Knives in class soar by 700%,” proclaimed the Sun. The Daily Mail had Prime Minister Gordon Brown declaring: ”We’re not safe.”
Some pundits suggest the heart of the matter is the breakdown of the family unit in poor, inner-city Britain.
Either way, the government has announced a raft of measures in recent days to try to tackle the problem, keen to be seen to be taking action over what some youth workers have described as a crisis set to spiral out of control.
As well as a ”knife tsar” — a senior police officer aptly named Alf Hitchcock who will coordinate strategy — police are being given more powers to stop and search teenagers, and those caught carrying knives could face prosecution and prison.
The parents of 20 000 at-risk children are being warned that they could be evicted from their government-subsidised housing if they don’t bring their children under control.
There is even a proposal, ridiculed by opposition politicians and doctors alike, for children caught with knives to be taken to hospitals to visit the victims of knife crime.
Misplaced panic?
But behind all the panic and demand for action, there are voices suggesting that politicians, the media and parents may all be getting excessively alarmed.
While the public appears to believe that youth crime is endlessly on the increase, figures from the past decade show that offending rates are essentially flat, according to Richard Garside, the director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London.
While there have been more stabbing-related murders among teenagers in London so far this year than there were in the first seven months of 2007, the overall number is not vast for a city of more than seven million people.
Exact comparisons are hard to make, but Britain ranks only 46th in a United Nations table of homicides per 1 000 people — below the United States, Canada and France.
According to a World Health Organisation report from 2002, Britain ranked 52nd out of 57 in a global table of murders committed by youths, below New Zealand and even Denmark.
Sceptics point out that while London may have problems with unruly, aggressive youths, it is hardly Armageddon.
”I am not saying that nothing is happening,” wrote David Aaronovitch, a social commentator, in the Times newspaper. ”I am saying that in most discussion of this subject — and particularly in those involving politicians and the media — there is darkness rather than light.
”I can’t help wondering whether what may be behind any recent real rise in knife crimes is precisely the recent unreal moral panic over knives.” — Reuters