A Safer Future Starts Before the Knife: Why Belonging, Mentoring and Early Support Matter

The latest figures offer a reason for cautious hope. Police-recorded offences involving knives or sharp instruments in England and Wales fell by 10% to 49,151 in the year ending December 2025. That matters. Yet it is also important to read the figure honestly: almost fifty thousand recorded offences remain, and national totals cannot describe the fear, grief and disruption experienced by individual families and neighbourhoods. Police-recorded crime is also affected by reporting and recording practices, so it should never be treated as the whole story.¹

Too much public discussion begins when a young person has already been stopped, harmed or charged. By then, opportunities for earlier support may have been missed. A prevention-led approach asks a different question: what was happening in that young person’s life before the knife appeared?

There is rarely one simple reason

The Youth Justice Board’s 2025 evidence and insights pack describes the reasons children may carry knives as varied and complex. They can include fear, victimisation, exploitation, pressure from peers, a search for status, poverty and deprivation.² This does not excuse violence. It does, however, challenge the idea that every child who carries a weapon is driven by the same motive or will respond to the same intervention.

For some young people, carrying a knife is presented as protection, even though it can increase danger. For others, violence is connected to exploitation or the need to belong. School exclusion, family pressure, bereavement, unmet mental-health needs and a lack of safe places can compound vulnerability. If adults respond only to the visible behaviour, they may never reach the fear, loss or coercion beneath it.

Belonging is not a soft outcome

A young person who feels connected to a trusted adult, a positive peer group and a future worth working towards has more to hold on to. Belonging can be built through youth work, mentoring, sport, creative activity, employment support and consistent relationships. The activity matters, but the relationship around it matters just as much.

Evidence reviewed by the Youth Endowment Fund suggests that mentoring programmes are associated, on average, with a 21% reduction in violence, a 14% reduction in offending and a 19% reduction in reoffending. These figures are averages across a body of international research, not a guarantee for every programme. They still make an important point: a dependable relationship with the right adult can be a serious part of violence prevention.³

Sport can also provide structure, identity and a safe route into support. The Youth Endowment Fund judges that targeted sports programmes may have a relatively large impact on involvement in crime and violence, while also noting that confidence in the available estimate is low because the evidence base is limited.⁴ That caveat matters. A football, boxing or fitness session is not automatically preventive. It becomes more powerful when trained adults use it to build trust, strengthen emotional regulation, notice risk and connect a young person to further help.

What good prevention looks like

Good prevention is relational, sustained and local. It does not wait for a young person to meet a criminal-justice threshold. It creates more than a one-off talk in an assembly. It gives young people repeated contact with adults who listen without humiliation, set clear boundaries and follow through.

It also treats young people as partners. The Children’s Commissioner has emphasised that youth voice is critical when services are being designed.⁵ Adults may understand budgets, safeguarding and referral routes; young people understand where they feel unsafe, which messages ring false and what would make them return. Both kinds of knowledge are needed.

For schools, councils, funders and community organisations, this means investing in the conditions around the programme as well as the activity itself: skilled and supported practitioners, safe venues, referral relationships, family engagement, cultural competence, continuity and meaningful routes into education or work.

The community response must begin earlier

At Integrate Hope, our work with boys and young men is grounded in a simple belief: young people need more than warnings about consequences. They need places where strength can mean self-control, asking for help, taking responsibility and protecting the future rather than performing risk. Through positive activities, mentoring, wellbeing conversations and employability support, programmes such as Brotherhood and Stronger Together can help create that wider sense of possibility.

A safer future will still require effective policing and firm action when harm occurs. But enforcement alone cannot provide belonging, repair trust or give a young person a different identity to grow into. If we want to prevent the knife, we must invest before the crisis – in relationships, opportunity and communities that do not give up on their young people.

Prevention is not one conversation about knives. It is the steady work of helping young people become safer, more connected and more hopeful before violence feels like an answer.