It doesn’t get more ridiculous or sinister than the BBC showcasing a criminal who boasts about murder. But that is precisely what happened when convicted murderer Jake Farhi had his drill music – referencing his 2008 murder of schoolboy Jimmy Mizen –showcased on BBC Radio 1Xtra, apparently for ‘really standing out’ as an artist. I’m sure he does.
One of his tracks included the vile lyric: “Stuck it on a man and watched him melt like Ben and Jerry’s”.
How many criminals, after serving 14 years of a life sentence for murder, decide to become rappers and boast about violence in music videos? I can’t think of too many. But that is indeed what Mr Farhi did, no doubt to the horror of his victim’s family – who have unsurprisingly described his lyrics as “absolutely horrendous”.
Of course, the BBC glamourising drill rappers with horrifically violent lyrics doesn’t help matters. But it’s about time we addressed the root cause of rising youth violence.
Almost every day, we are seeing more and more young people falling prey to this scourge – and most of us are rightly outraged our politicians seem more interested in burnishing their woke credentials than tackling the issue. In Sadiq Khan’s London, where knife crime has risen by more than 40% since he became mayor, it’s more important to rename ‘offensive’ street names than to equip the police with the resources they need to tackle this problem.
Mr Khan’s ineffective leadership has coincided with a grotesque rise in knife crime in the city, yet he has since been rewarded a knighthood. But the problem is a lot deeper than one man.
It is also getting worse in other towns and cities. Sheffield, Derby, and Nottingham have all seen a rise in knife crimes. The West Midlands, especially Birmingham, has become a regional hotspot. Even Cleveland has recorded sharp rises in knife offences, with the region reporting 14.02 offences per 10,000 people in 2024.
Effective measures such as ‘stop and search’ are clearly part of the solution, especially considering police officers apparently have enough free time to investigate offensive tweets and Facebook posts. But that alone is not enough.
We need to start asking what kinds of homes are producing young people who think it’s acceptable to go on the streets armed with knives. Who are the parents responsible for these teenagers with no respect for the law or human life?
The data is clear – and it’s time to face the uncomfortable truth. According to the Prison Reform Trust, 76% of young men in prison in England and Wales had absent fathers.
Over the last decade, approximately 9% of the 6,639 homicides in England and Wales involved children under the age of 15. Of these, 217 victims were between the ages of five and 15, with boys accounting for about two-thirds of these tragic deaths.
Most victims and perpetrators of knife violence are under the age of 30. And black and other ethnic minority communities are overrepresented as both victims and perpetrators of these crimes. I don’t say this to make the case that only communities affected by knife crime should be the most concerned about it. These are British children dying on British soil. And so it affects us all, including the teachers, social workers and police officers who regularly come into contact with the victims of these crimes.
However, more must be done. While there is not one single cause of rising violence in society, the available data points to some worrying trends. Drugs, gangs, knife crime, broken families, and a broken social and education system.
But are we really surprised by the statistics we are seeing? How are inner-city youngsters supposed to navigate a world increasingly at the mercy of violent gangs, potent drugs and machetes?
Stories like that of Kelyan Bokassa, another teenager murdered this month in London, should serve as a wake-up call. His heartbroken mother admitted she was “not surprised” – after trying but failing to get the authorities help to prevent him from associating with gangs. She says her son always “had one foot on the streets” despite her desperate attempts.
Is this how bad things have got? That a mother is not even surprised by her child’s murder?
On this front, conservatives have failed as much as socialists. When did we stop making the case for raising well-adjusted, productive members of society in a family context?
How did society let this rise in anti-social and criminal behaviour among the youth steadily creep up on us? London alone has lost more than 200 teenagers to senseless violence over the last nine years alone. If we can no longer keep our young people safe, we have failed as a society.