Fear and fashion
City Bridge Trust commissioned research into young people and
knife crime back in 2004, long before the issue became a major
social policy issue. The research, by Lemos&Crane, concluded
that there were two major reasons for young people carrying
knives:
- Fear of violence from other young people
- To acquire status amongst their peers for carrying and/or being
willing to use a knife.
Following the release of the original report,'Fear and Fashion:
The use of knives and other weapons by young people', five
independent grant-making trusts formed a partnership. They
were:
- City Bridge Trust
- The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
- The John Lyon's Charity
- Trust for London
- The Wates Foundation
Their intention was to pool financial and intellectual resources
to develop and fund a collaborative programme named 'Fear and
Fashion' which would devise appropriate practical responses to the
issues raised in the report. Four exemplar projects were funded in
2007 for three years to develop and test out different
interventions to prevent young people from carrying and using
weapons.
In 2008, Clear Plan was commissioned to undertake an evaluation
of the projects over a two-year period. Their final evaluation
report has now been published and can be downloaded by following
the links below.
More information on these and other projects around the UK
tackling knife crime can be found on the Fear and Fashion
website.
Download the Fear and Fashion evaluation report as a PDF
Download the Fear and Fashion evaluation report summary as a
PDF
Download a copy of the original Fear and Fashion report as a
PDF
