WIREDGOV

A total of £2 million from the Community Fund and the Youth Sector Development Fund will help organisations who work with young people to prevent them becoming involved in gun, gang and knife crime. Successful bidders include the Croydon Youth Development Trust and Manchester Young Lives.

In addition, £300k from the Victims’ Fund will be given to six organisations that support the families and friends of victims of homicide including the Damilola Taylor Trust and Mothers Against Murder and Aggression.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said:

“The organisations receiving funding today work tirelessly with communities at the very frontline of the fight against knife crime and demonstrate how at every level we are tackling serious youth violence.

“I am committed to making our streets safer by tackling the minority of young people who commit serious violence through enforcement, tougher sentencing, and also stronger prevention, sending out a very clear message that it will not be tolerated.”

Lyn Costello, Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA) said:

“MAMAA are pleased to have been successful in their application for The Victims’ Fund. The grant will allow us to reach secondary victims of violent crime, enabling them to access a much needed support system.

“Further to this it will enable continued training of volunteer support workers, in the hope of reaching every family member that needs our service. It is encouraging to see resources being directed toward services that directly benefit victims of violent crime, a group of people who are in dire need of support and services and we hope to see this commitment to victims continue at government level.”

The funding is part of the government’s one-year extension of its Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) announced in March. TKAP now works intensively in 15 areas affected by knife crime to reduce the number of knives on the streets, as well as with the British Transport Police.

Latest provisional figures from the NHS show a 22 per cent reduction in admissions for ‘sharp object’ assault for teenagers across England in March 2008 to February 2009 compared with the same period the previous year.

During the same time periods, in the nine original English TKAP areas there was a 27 per cent fall in teenage stabbing admissions and a corresponding fall of 11 per cent in the non-TKAP areas.

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The organisations, who all work in the Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) areas, will receive funding from the homicide section of the Victims’ Fund, the Youth Sector Development Fund or the Community Fund. Community Fund grants will be awarded following successful completion of the due diligence process.

1. For details of the successful bidders visit www.crimereduction.homeoffice.gov.uk/funding/funding013.htm

1. The Community Fund was launched in October 2008 to provide £4.5 million of funding over three years to 150 organisations working to divert young people from gun, gang and knife crime in the 13 phase 1 TKAP areas.

1. The Youth Sector Development Fund is run through DCSF and will provide £100 million over three years (2008-2011). The Home Office has contributed a one-off £500k to the YSDF which will be allocated to four organisations working specifically with young people most at risk of becoming involved in gang and knife crime.

1. The Victims’ Fund was established in 2004/05. It contributes to a wider programme of work to provide victims and witnesses with specialists support to meet their individual needs. In the financial year 09/10 the homicide section of the Victims’ Fund has £300K available to organisations supporting the friends and family of victims of homicide.

1. TKAP launched in June 2008 with ten police forces – Metropolitan, Essex, Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Merseyside, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire, South Wales and Thames Valley. In November 2008 four more were added as second tier forces - Bedfordshire, Northumbria, South Yorkshire and British Transport Police. In March 2009 it was further extended to include Kent and Hampshire.

1. TKAP is sending out a clear message that if an individual carries a knife, they aremore likely to get caught, prosecuted and receive a tough punishment. It has also accelerated educational programmes and diversionary activity to stop young people becoming involved in knife crime in the first place, and reassured the public that we are doing all that we can to keep knives off our streets, with high visibility enforcement activity to back this message up.