Official Knife Crime Booklet Launch

09 April 2019
Crystal Palace FC, London

On 9th April, 50 plus representatives of Croydon government, police, safeguarding bodies and voluntary community organisations gathered in the Stanley Stephenson Lounge of Crystal Palace Football Club for the official launch of booklets on tackling knife crime. Music Relief Foundation, a charitable youth organisation, had commissioned field research into the knife-crime situation in Croydon, which culminated in the publication of two versions of a booklet, one aimed at activists and policymakers. The research combines statistical data analysis to identify high-crime areas and qualitative ‘ethnographic’ inquiry into communities to establish who makes rules in our street with a view of coming up with multi-agency targeted strategy. 
Phil Alexander, CEO of Crystal Palace, opened the proceedings by welcoming one an all at the venue that was graciously offered to Music Relief Foundation for the event out of the good will of the Crystal Palace FC and the video clip by star player Wilfried Zaha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0NGTEyk0lQ&t=1s.

This was followed by a welcome from Jonathan Bob-Amara, Chair of the Board of Directors of Music Relief Foundation.
Jonathan Bob-Amara: It [research] has provoked people to think outside the box as to what really are the root causes of knife crime in Croydon and what are some of the ways we can approach and address them.
Next up was a short testimonial from Magdalene Adenaike, the MRF CEO, whose brainchild the foundation is. She spoke passionately of the need to nurture young minds and foster their creativity.
Magdalene Adenaike: We don’t claim to have the answers. The idea of this research is to have a conversations between the council, institutions, community groups, individuals, members of the public. Let’s have that started.
The launch was officiated by Madam Mayor of Croydon, Bernadette Khan, who spoke about the terrible loss to everyone due to knife crime.
Madam Mayor: Knife crime is horrendous… an event in any child’s life, in any family’s life, in any peer groups’ lives… And so it is absolutely crucial that we work on, hopefully, eliminating it.
Bart Konechni, one of the co-authors of the research, made an engaging slide presentation outlining his research and ethnographic approach, widely practiced in France and the US, but, apparently, less popular in this country. Bart is Croydon born and bred and is currently a student at Sciences Po (the Paris Institute of Political Studies), specialising in economics and sociology. He will be taking part in the ESA conference in Manchester when he will speak about the role of religious institutions in tackling crime.
Bart: Why Croydon? Oh, because Croydon had, unfortunately, a high increase in knife crime: 103% in 2016 to 2017. London average was 24%. So this was an exceptional rate and seemed worthwhile to come to study.
Then there was a short presentation from three Music Relief Ambassadors. They spoke of benefits they drew from their involvement with the foundation.

The final item on the agenda was a panel discussion followed by a question and answer session. The panel consisted of Bart Konechni, Cllr Hamida Ali, Cabinet Member for Safer Croydon & Communities; MRF ambassadors; Jonathan Bob-Amara; Steve Phaure CEO of Croydon Voluntary Action (CVA), Andrew Brown CEO of Croydon BME Forum and Jonathan Toy, interim Operational Director: Enforcement for Croydon as well as an author of books and articles on youth and gang violence. Knife-crime is a painful issue, which led to passionate and sometimes heated discussion.
Jonathan Toy: I think it’s a great platform in terms of how it fits in with the narrative we’re developing in terms of a long-term public-health approach to tackle violence within Croydon. Snippet from the event  – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXE1ItQpxLc
We are going regional with our next event at City Hall in June 2019.