As public concern about the tragic increases in knife crime gathers pace it is important that we do not seek to tackle the growing incidence of teenage murders as somehow divorced from the incidence of violence generally within our communities. Ben Kinsella joins a growing number of victim’s whose senseless killings are becoming so frequent that many people are becoming immune to the shocking truth of violence.

At such times the temptation of the politician and a voracious press is to look for simple and immediate solutions. However tempting, it is critically important that we do not rely on these historically failed solutions to solve real time problems that are hugely complex.

Divorcing youth violence, however shocking from community violence generally, for example from domestic violence, adult alcohol fuelled violence and child abuse is a fundamental error. We must seek new solutions to an age-old problem of high levels of violence concentrated in, but not exclusive to, poor inner city areas