According to this: [https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/stabbing-deaths-by-country](https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/stabbing-deaths-by-country) the UK is ranked #183/187 for mortal stabbings per 100k deaths worldwide. The figure itself is 0.08 mortal stabbings/100k deaths, which is (to 2d.p. at least) the same as the other four countries at the bottom (Ghana, Tunisia, Oman, Monaco). For clarity, Iceland (lowest violent crime rate in the world) is #164. USA is #111. Yet, in England (including in the King’s Speech House of Commons discussion yesterday\[?\]) politicians talk as if there is some ‘knife-crime epidemic’ and it’s ‘on the rise’ (actual quotes). I live in England, and have my entire life. Naturally, I’ve never been stabbed, nor do I know anyone who’s been stabbed.
Is there tons of non-fatal stabbings/slashings that no-one talks about? I don’t understand how a country can have a ‘knife-crime epidemic’ whilst having the fifth lowest fatal stabbing rates globally.
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The answer is that it’s mostly politics.
There are a handful of things that are widely accepted by everyone to be Bad Things. Deadly stabbings are one of them. If you go on TV and say “We’re against knife crime”, there is no pro-knife crime lobby who’s going to disagree.
This makes it an *easy* thing for politicians to make grandiose pledges about, because literally nobody is fighting a “pro-knife crime” argument and their points will never be examined. Plus, since knife crime is bad, it’s a straightforward good thing to stand *against*.
Also, if you’re looking to curry favour, it’s really easy to pick a few recent serious knife attacks and use them to fearmonger and convince people that knife crime is, actually, a problem that needs to be solved. Just look at this stabbing that happened the other week. Doesn’t someone need to do something about it? I’ll do something about it.
Compare this to, say, the XL Bully problem. There exist people who will advocate for XL Bullies, so if a politician were to stand up and say “we will be the party that will ban dangerous dog breeds”, there will be people out there who are passionate about dogs and will vigorously challenge, fact check and generally object to the argument.
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