Harry Burkett was described as being “a loving young man”. His death has come as a painful shock to both the Clacton and Grays communities. A fundraiser has been set up to raise funds for Mr Burkett’s funeral by his cousin who said that Harry’s “life was taken in the worst possible way”. Harry’s sister quoted to the BBC that her brother “liked to have fun and would always put others before himself”.

This is not the first time that the issue of knife crime has been brought to attention by a tragic murder. As we have all seen MP Sir David Amess’ life was recently stripped away due to knife violence—just months prior to his plea with the Prime Minister to end “senseless” knife crime, such as the murder of Harry Burkett.  Amess so rightly pointed out "What more does my right honourable friend think the police, society, and Parliament can do to make sure that in the future there will never be such senseless murders again.”  So too should we push this message of effort from every sector of our society to draw together and end knife crime.

The government's campaign in 2017 for knife crime with the slogan “only cowards carry knives” cannot be forgotten and efforts should not have stopped there. It must be emphasised that knife crime control should start with looking at the social and environmental factors making youth turn against youth, and people turn against people.

 

A report by The Conversation found that there has been  a £422.3 million reduction in spending on services for young people in the last six years alone. Research has also suggested that young people often don’t trust the authorities to protect them, especially in low income areas with already high crime rates. The success of police work and enforcement relies upon this connection with community which arguably has been lost, leading to young people feeling the need to protect themselves with the only way they see possible. In order to control the ever rising knife crime crisis we need to act and create change to the environmental contributions that lead to youth resorting to tragic knife crimes.

By investing in young people and local communities, as oppose to increasing enforcement and punishing those at ‘risk’ of offending, the emphasis should be on providing a better sense of community and services for young people in areas with high crime and low income who don’t have anybody to turn to.

It is our moral responsibility to make sure tragedies such as Harry Burkett’s death don’t happen—without government effort, funding and public commitment, knife crime will continue to rise.


A march in memory of Harry Burkett will be taking place on the 20th November, 12pm, Station Road—in a bid to raise awareness to the dangers of knife crime and the life-changing effects this has.