The Police and Crime Commissioner for Derbyshire has spoken on the eve of a week of action - a national response to knife crime.
At the beginning of Operation Sceptre, Hardyal Dhindsa said: “The national rise in serious violence is, I believe, the direct result of the Conservative funding cuts that impacted not just on police numbers, but youth services and support for vulnerable people. It led to heightened levels of deprivation, which unfortunately will always lead to a cycle of crime.
“In Derbyshire we haven’t fared as badly as some areas: violence with injury has fallen by 18% in the last twelve months. But we must dissuade people from carrying a knife as part of their everyday wardrobe. It’s not. It’s a deadly weapon."
The PCC has invested £300,000 to work with StreetGames, harnessing the power of sport to create positive change and has joined a new national board to promote and develop sport as an effective way to prevent youth crime, helping both victim and potential offenders.
But he said there was still more to be done. PCC Dhindsa said he had made a commitment to continuing to work with partners and individually to tackle knife crime and youth violence, suggesting that society would, at some point pay the price for the Coronavirus support packages and was therefore determined that Derbyshire’s crime rates will not suffer as a result.
He has been critical of the Government for not providing additional funding because the county crime rate was not high enough, which he said was unfair because the region had been left to deal with it through its own means.