No Knives, Better Lives 2017

At its inception in 2009 the No Knives, Better Lives programme was part of the Scottish Government’s response to the significant knife crime problem which existed in Scotland.  Much has changed since then.  Violent crime (including knife crime) is at its lowest level in forty two years and the incidence of young people charged with handling an offensive weapon has fallen dramatically in the last ten years. In recognition of this NKBL has evolved from the original “campaign” approach to a more sustainable capacity building programme designed to support local partners to develop long term knife crime prevention strategies and to embed the delivery of lower level knife crime prevention inputs and programmes for young people in service delivery.