Bus Stop Ad Campaign to Spread Anti-Knife Message
Tuesday, 13 January, 2009
Bedfordshire Police continues to spread the word on why carrying knives is a mugs game with a new bus stop advertising campaign starting today (Tuesday).
The large posters, which will be appearing around the county, are the latest step in a long running 'No More Knives' initiative aimed at educating youngsters about the dangers of carrying weapons.
Designed with the message 'Game over - carrying knives ruins lives' the ad campaign hopes to reach into the heart of the community and is designed to dispel the cultural myths surrounding knives and get the message across the damage they can cause.
It follows on from other proactive work by Bedfordshire Police including the launch of the dedicated website www.nomoreknives.com, which contains films and opinions that have been made by young people for young people, and talks in schools.
In addition to the bus stop adverts, school talks and the website, the force is also raising awareness amongst the migrant population entering in to the UK through London Luton Airport, deploying safety arches in town centres at night and organising diversionary activities such as web site design competitions and a football tournament for young people to enter.
Charlie Whiteside, the force's Youth Issues Advisor says the idea of 'No More Knives' is starting to get through to people. She said: "We have delivered our 'No More Knives' talks to hundreds of young people in schools and we are now developing other ways of getting them to think about the danger of carrying knives by inviting them to design web pages for the Bedfordshire Police site and organising a football tournament with Nottinghamshire Police, which is where the 'No More Knives' concept began. We hope by going direct to kids in schools we can start to affect and change attitudes at a time when they are starting to question these issues for themselves."
Safety arches continue to be deployed in town centres at weekends to detect and seize weapons from those people going to pubs and clubs who may think carrying them is a good idea but also to send out the message that routinely carrying a knife to 'protect yourself' will not be tolerated.
Finally, the J Sainsbury supermarket chain is also supporting this initiative and one of its key stores in Luton will have the 'No More Knives' message printed on each till receipt for three months from March.
Nationally knife crime remains high on the agenda but Bedfordshire actually saw a fall in the number of offences involving bladed weapons last year. Charlie Whiteside added: "We are not complacent about the situation in Bedfordshire which is why we are taking positive action to educate young people about this issue. There is a lot of work to be done to change attitudes and cultures but we are determined to try."
