As violent crime engulfs London, the comment desk is offered solutions

All too often, young people – especially young black people – aren’t listened to or included in conversations at governmental level about knife and gun crime. On the Voices desk, we get to start those conversations and hopefully see them gain momentum

As the numbers of young people who have either died or been affected by knife and gun crime continue to rise, so too, predictably, have calls for the police to “crack down” on those same young people.

But alongside a push for more draconian stop and search practices is the emerging understanding that simply resorting to more force, primarily against young black men, isn’t exactly the silver bullet the youth violence epidemic needs.

We know how ineffective stop and search tends to be in terms of reducing knife crime. And we know full well, thanks to the tireless efforts of campaigners, charities and bodies like the Independent Police Complaints Commission, that when it comes to police contact with ethnic minorities, particularly black people, the results can be fatal.