The head of the Metropolitan police’s anti-knife initiative, Operation Sceptre, has admitted past failures in engaging with communities most affected by youth violence, amid criticism of the force’s latest strategy to tackle the problem.

But DCS Michael Gallagher said that for the latest phase of its strategy to reduce knife crime – launched after recent police figures showing a rise of 24% in the past year in London – the Met was ready to work with civil society groups to find joint solutions to the problem.

Earlier this year the Guardian launched Beyond the Blade, a long-term project looking at young people who are victims of knife crime. The number of fatal stabbings in London this year rose to 32 on Thursday, after a 20-year-old victim in Romford was taken to hospital and died shortly after. Of those, 16 were teenagers and children, and seven were in London.

The Met launched the eighth phase of Operation Sceptre at the beginning of the month, making 511 arrests and recovering 380 knives. Longer-term measures include an 80-strong “murder suppression” unit, intensified stop-and-search, and calls for schools to introduce metal-detecting “knife arches”.



Responding to accusations that police were not involving the public in decision-making, Gallagher said: “If we were talking a few months ago they would be absolutely spot on. But that commentary’s a bit dated now because of the kind of engagement that we’re doing at the moment.”

But those working with young people who are at risk of violence have accused the Met of rehashing old and ineffective tactics, saying they fail to meaningfully engage with affected communities.

Nicky Hill, a youth violence consultant based in Lambeth, warned that when it came to knife crime, police tactics seemed focused on managing the symptoms, rather than addressing root problems.

“Anybody that works [or] lives in these communities knows that knife crime is the symptom of more deep-rooted societal issues, which we seem to be insisting on ignoring.”

Temi Mwale, chief executive of 4Front, a social enterprise that works with young people in Tottenham, north-east London, questioned whether police wereadopting a new approach. “The problem with their so-called new method is: what is different about it?” Mwale said.

“We can’t just keep rolling out stop and search as the only kind of viable solution, because it’s a suppression tactic,” she said. “You can take 20, 50, 100 knives off a young person, but there’s always going to be a ready supply of knives for them to get: all they have to do is go to their kitchen drawer.”

The focus needed to move towards tackling the reasons why young people arm themselves, Mwale said. “When it’s a life and death situation, where you are seriously thinking that you’re going to be killed, you don’t care what the law says because the law’s not going to be there to protect you.”

As part of the Operation Sceptre initiative, police said they were also recruiting community “role models” to deliver anti-knife messages to young people.

Dr Mahamed Hashi, who sits on Lambeth’s stop and search monitoring group, said role models of the kind sought by the Met were already active, but their work was hampered by a lack of funding and support.

“Right now I’m not seeing the community being involved in the architecture of putting together a solution,” Hashi said. “They are going to be invited into it once everything has been solidified and everyone knows what they’re doing, and that’s just silly.”

Benjamin Lindsay, pastor of Emmanuel church in New Cross, who has worked with young people for more than 15 years, was more sympathetic to the police approach. But he too cautioned that he didn’t think “any of these things could be done independently.”.

“I don’t think you can just increase stop and search; I don’t think you can just have more people on the streets. I think you need a really good combination of tactics to stop serious youth violence,” he said, adding that he was willing to work with senior officers to develop and implement an effective strategy.

Gallagher conceded that the Met was not capable of tackling knife crime on its own. “We are an enforcement agency and we’re not the best fit to fix this societal problem,” he said. “Londoners recognise this and they do recognise that as a single agency we’re not going to solve it on our own.”

He denied that the latest efforts were an attempt to revive Operation Shield, an anti-gang strategy launched by Boris Johnson’s mayoral administration that also called for the involvement of civil society. It collapsed after it was rejected by community groups who said it was too severe and failed to take their ideas into account.

The Met insists that this time it has the support of Londoners. But Hashi, who was involved in the “disastrous” delivery of Shield, said: “What they are saying is that we need to stop our young people being killed: who would not support that? Of course they’ve got support. But having support and involving people in the process[are] two different things.

“For me the proof is going to be in the pudding. We’ll see who’s round the table when they are setting it up, who’s going to be involved in the delivery … because traditionally they’ll have a group of people that they always engage with.”