More than 150 organisations will receive £2.3 million to tackle knife crime and support victims Home Secretary Alan Johnson announced today.
A total of £2 million from the Community Fund and the Youth Sector Development Fund will help organisations who work with young people to prevent them becoming involved in gun, gang and knife crime. Successful bidders include the Croydon Youth Development Trust and Manchester Young Lives.
In addition, £300k from the Victims’ Fund will be given to six organisations that support the families and friends of victims of homicide including the Damilola Taylor Trust and Mothers Against Murder and Aggression.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:
“The organisations receiving funding today work tirelessly with communities at the very frontline of the fight against knife crime and demonstrate how at every level we are tackling serious youth violence.
“I am committed to making our streets safer by tackling the minority of young people who commit serious violence through enforcement, tougher sentencing, and also stronger prevention, sending out a very clear message that it will not be tolerated.”
Lyn Costello, Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA) said:
“MAMAA are pleased to have been successful in their application for The Victims’ Fund. The grant will allow us to reach secondary victims of violent crime, enabling them to access a much needed support system.
“Further to this it will enable continued training of volunteer support workers, in the hope of reaching every family member that needs our service. It is encouraging to see resources being directed toward services that directly benefit victims of violent crime, a group of people who are in dire need of support and services and we hope to see this commitment to victims continue at government level.”
The funding is part of the government’s one-year extension of its Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) announced in March. TKAP now works intensively in 15 areas affected by knife crime to reduce the number of knives on the streets, as well as with the British Transport Police.
Latest provisional figures from the NHS show a 22 per cent reduction in admissions for ‘sharp object’ assault for teenagers across England in March 2008 to February 2009 compared with the same period the previous year.
During the same time periods, in the nine original English TKAP areas there was a 27 per cent fall in teenage stabbing admissions and a corresponding fall of 11 per cent in the non-TKAP areas.
