The hard-hitting workshops tackling knife crime crisis

Amy-Clare Martin goes inside the London classroom that’s focused on steering at-risk children away from violence

- Amy-Clare Martin

In anorth London classroom, three girls tentatively raise their hand. Each, aged 13 and 14, has just admitted that they have already been targeted by criminals trying to groom them into socalled county lines” drug-dealing gangs.None of them is ready to share the full details of their encounter with the recruiters, which typically includes knives, threats against their families or playground tricks which see children targeted by bullies, only to be saved by an influential gang member who will take them under their wing.

The three girls make up almost a third of the class at the hardhitting after-school workshop, where expert mentors try to steer at-risk children away from a life of exploitation, knife crime and gangs.

It is possible that other children in the room, not yet prepared to admit it, have also been targeted or have friends who have “gone country” and found themselves trapped in a dangerous criminal underworld, where child drug-runners are “debt bonded” or intimidated into compliance.

Most caught in this cycle of criminality carry knives to protect themselves and drop out of school, frequently going missing as they work from properties that have been “cuckoo’d” – when gangs take over a vulnerable person’s home to sell drugs.

But through early intervention sessions designed to challenge negative behaviours using creative arts and motivational strategies, the teens are taught key skills and conflict resolution in a bid to turn them away from violence.

During the crucial after-school hours, in which vulnerable youngsters are at the highest risk of being exploited or falling into crime, they meet with The Safety Box for workshops funded by London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU).