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‘We need to be braver’: The fight to tackle youth violence in Bristol
The walls of a boxing gym in Easton are lined with photos of the young people whose lives it has transformed. In the middle, there’s a photo of Dontae Davis, an 18-year-old who was fatally stabbed in October 2021.
For Martin Bisp, co-founder of Empire Fighting Chance – a boxing gym and youth charity that helps young people achieve their potential – Dontae’s photo, along with the others, is a reminder of the adversity many of the young people he works with have had to face. But it’s also a reminder of the young people the gym has lost to knife crime.
“One of my big drivers was Dontae,” Martin tells me when I meet him at the gym. We’re joined by Empire’s community outreach coordinator, Courtney Young, not long after two more young boys were fatally stabbed in Knowle West, sending shock waves through the local community.
is needed now More than ever
Dontae had a college place and a job on the turnstiles at Bristol Rovers. “He was a kid that we cared for and loved and, when he got killed, we realised that in some way the city and the institutions kind of failed him,” Martin reflects.
Empire Fighting Chance co-founder Martin Bisp and community outreach coordinator Courtney Young have been on the frontlines of a youth violence epidemic in Bristol – photo: Mia Vines Booth
The walls of Empire Fighting Chance are lined with young people that have passed through the gym, including Dontae Davis (centre bottom) – photo: Mia Vines Booth
Empire Fighting Chance has been on the frontline of a complex and emotional battle currently being waged against what has been described as a “knife crime epidemic” in Bristol.
In July last year, 19-year-old Eddie Kinuthia lost his life after being stabbed in St Paul’s. Eddie’s killers have still not been charged at the time of writing, and his death is one of a number of fatal stabbings that have claimed the lives of five young Bristol boys in the last year and injured many others.
At the end of January, in the space of 18 days, this violence escalated. Max Dixon, 16, and Mason Rist, 15, died after being attacked in Knowle West on January 27, and Darrian Williams, 16, was attacked in Rawnsley Park in Easton on February 14 and later died on West Street.
In the same 18-day period, a number of non-fatal stabbings took place, including an incident where a 16-year-old was stabbed in the city centre, a teenager was threatened with a knife in Little Stoke Park, a 14-year-old-boy was stabbed in Mina Road Park, a 20-year-old was stabbed on East Park Road and a 15-year-old boy was robbed at knife point by a masked gang in Filton.
For Martin, every incident is one too many. “That should be abhorrent to all of us,” he says. “There shouldn’t be a single person in this city that is comfortable with somebody carrying a knife or dying.”
But Martin – like many other youth centres, community leaders, families and charities, is acutely aware of the mammoth battle ahead.
Clockwise from top left: Eddie Kinuthia, Darrian Williams, Max Dixon and Mason Rist – all photos: Avon and Somerset Police
“Young people are struggling, services are struggling under the weight of it. This is the time when the city needs to come together and find ways of making it better,” he says.
“I think that maybe we’ve reached a point where everybody is horrified. And that might be our point in which we can move forward and do things differently.”
A knife crime epidemic?
Nationally, knife crime has risen each year since the pandemic, with 13,503 incidents recorded in London alone between July 2022 and June 2023, a 21 per cent increase on the previous 12-month period.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics in February confirmed that, despite a decrease in homicides in the 13-19 age group, teenagers remain more than twice as likely to be fatally stabbed than they were ten years ago.
While these figures are shocking, they don’t necessarily reflect a sudden spike in knife crime and youth violence. Nationally, knife crime levels have still to return to pre-pandemic levels, remaining eight per cent lower than before the pandemic in 2020.
Knife crime rates in the Avon and Somerset police force area are around the national average, with 47 per cent of knife crime in their catchment dealt with in Bristol.
Each of these stabbings is set against a complex backdrop of 14 years of austerity, a pandemic and cost of living crisis and chronically underfunded local services like youth clubs and leisure centres.
They also have foundations in the murky depths of social media, postcode wars, organised crime groups, and poverty and disillusionment.
The deaths of Eddie, Max, Mason and Darrian were tragic examples of the “worst case scenario” in a city where, in 2023, on average four people were stabbed every day, with young people more often than not the ones in front of, and behind, the knife.
Last year, the social services department in Bristol received a much higher number of referrals for children facing harm than in 2022. Referrals for serious youth violence increased by 50 per cent, from 94 cases in 2022 to 141 last year.
As we discuss knife crime in Bristol, Martin and Courtney remind each other solemnly about the young people killed or injured from stabbings who have passed through their gym.
Since the recent spate of stabbings, the gym has stepped up its approach, working with international leaders in the violence reduction field to deliver a coalition-approach in Bristol.
Positive role models
In-house, young people who were once referred to Empire Fighting Chance now help teach others important life skills.
Serena Wiebe came to Empire as a young teenager and now works as a mentor to help the younger kids.
As a child, Serena regularly attended youth clubs like Malcom X Community Centre in St Paul’s, Sparks and Empire.
Now 20, she lost her younger brother to knife crime five years ago, and has since made it her mission to help others channel anger and intergenerational trauma – the cycle of violence passed down through generations – into something positive and constructive.
Empire supports young people referred to the gym for reasons that can include violent or antisocial behaviour – photo: Mia Vines Booth
At a recent panel discussion on knife crime in Bristol, Serena speaks eloquently on her personal experience and delivers an emotive call to arms for the city to step up and do better.
“When I used to go to these spaces [youth clubs], they would take me to places outside of Bristol that I thought I would never see,” she says. “The fact that’s been cut for the new generation, means they’re not going to get that chance to see things outside of Bristol.
“When you can take a child outside of something that they see all the time and expose them to something that they might not be able to see because they can’t afford it, or for whatever reason, it sparks career ideas and motivates them to do things that maybe they thought they wouldn’t be able to do.”
Serena remembers when Bristol’s first Black mayor Marvin Rees visited Empire Fighting Chance. It was the first time she felt like she could do something important with her life.
“I’m someone who experienced loss, experienced a lot of trauma,” she says. “But I managed to go to university and managed to get a good job.
“I’ve achieved so many things all because I was exposed to certain things. If you can do that to me, imagine what you can do with hundreds of other kids.”
Serena now uses her experience to inspire the young people she works with at Empire. “I don’t care how stupid (their career plans are), because when you start telling kids they can’t do something, that’s how they’re going to feel for a long time because a negative comment will stick with a child longer than a positive one.”
“The hardest thing is leaving and breaking that cycle”
Rapper Young Huss has taken the same approach with his work to prevent knife crime. Now 30, Young Huss was in and out of prison as a teenager after being stabbed in the leg during an altercation.
He says music saved his life and believes the way to tackle knife crime is to give young people the opportunities to pursue something they are passionate about.
“Music has always been a way to break free for me. I write lyrics to get away from the reality of the environment I’m living with,” he says.
Young Huss tried to continue his music while doing time, but the prison he was in didn’t offer music classes. He believes much of the negative drill music which glamorises violence and “payback” comes from the lack of creative spaces where young people can channel their anger and trauma.
Young Huss was stabbed and imprisoned as a teen. Now he’s helping others change their path – photo: Mia Vines Booth
He considered dropping out and thought he would never work again. “When I asked probation to do music, there was nothing. I didn’t know what to do. Nothing was brought to the table for me,” he reflects.
After his third stint in prison, Young Huss discovered Keys4Life, an organisation that supports ex-offenders to achieve bright futures and reduce reoffending rates. When they asked him what he wanted to do, Young Huss told them he wanted to go into youth work.
Keys4Life found him a role at a school in Knowle West teaching music. The experience was life-changing for Young Huss, who realised that he could break the cycle not only for himself, but for young people who could be supported to realise their own potential.
“If you’ve got someone that has gone through it and has changed, then you can do it,” he says. “When I was growing up, nobody told me ‘don’t do it’.
“Key4Life showed me a different side of things. They made me see a light at the end of the tunnel,” he says.
“The hardest thing is leaving and breaking that cycle. Now I see things I used to do back then and I see someone totally different. There’s guys in jail that are screaming for one more chance and they can’t get it.”
Young Huss was referred to Empire Fighting Chance when he was a teen, inspiring his motto today: “Put your knives down, put your gloves on, get in the ring.”
The rapper now has his own studio, which he lets young people come and use for free anytime they want. “I was used to being limited to an hour, then I was back on the streets,” he says. “If I had been in there two or three hours, it would have gotten me off the street.”
“It’s about us acknowledging the trauma”
Jordan Everett helps run the Full Circle Project at Docklands Youth Centre in St Paul’s, a youth club which Eddie Kinuthia attended before he was fatally stabbed. The centre has lost a number of its young people to knife crime in the last few years.
We meet in the Docklands kitchen, where meals are regularly served to young people. Next door, there is a gymnasium with a mural dedicated to the community of St Paul’s painted on one wall. There are also music rooms, sports classes and a playground.
Eddie’s death has come as a real shock to the youth club. “There’s a lot of people that were traumatised by the experience,” Jordan tells me. “There’s so many things that could have helped and couldn’t have helped in that time of need.”
The Full Circle Project at Docklands Youth Centre launched its Boys Club last year, a safe space for young men to talk about their mental health – photo Mia Vines Booth
At 19, Eddie had dreams for his future. He wanted to be a musician, and loved to rap and sing. The CEO of Docklands was due to put him in contact with British rapper Big Narstie’s promoter.
“Eddie went to church. Eddie was a good soul. He was a person that everyone loved,” Jordan reflected. “He was on the verge of being a star. So I was really sad.”
Eddie’s funeral was attended by hundreds of people who took part in the procession. A live Facebook feed recorded the event.
It touched the community and, in particular, the parents, who held an event at Malcolm X Community Centre shortly after the funeral to bring young people together to address the issue of stabbings.
Jordan believes the collective trauma among young men from intergenerational violence is something that isn’t talked about enough.
“If you are a Black person, or part of an ethnic minority, you shouldn’t be doing this (killing),” he tells me as he shakes his head. “We glamourise murdering our own people and we’re kind of used to it, so we’re our own problem, to a certain extent.
“So it’s about us acknowledging the trauma, addressing it, and kind of seeking a place like Full Circle to say ‘that’s not the way to do things’. However, if you want to change your life, you want to get a career, we can put you in the right direction.”
Desmond Brown, the founder of Growing Futures, also warns of the impact of this trauma when I speak to him. His organisation works with young people who have been through the criminal justice system to rehabilitate them into society and become role models for others.
“It’s almost implicit that black people have something to do with their own death. And that really does add trauma on top of trauma in black communities,” Desmond says.
“You just have to look at the killings in London and the different responses in the media. When a white kid dies, it’s: ‘the angel who didn’t deserve it.’ When a Black boy dies, it’s: ‘marred past, difficult upbringing, was involved in things’.
“We talk about trauma as something in the past. But it’s trauma on top of the trauma. For the people who were working with these young people, we fear who is going to be next. And that’s before you even get into the historical trauma.”
Jordan helps run Boys Club, a therapeutic talking space, funded by Avon and Somerset police, for young men who have been impacted by youth violence.
“I think the Boys Club is the future,” says Jordan. “It’s only going to grow. We’ve got five lads already. I want to give back to the young men here, no matter what your skin colour.”
Jordan will see the boys on a regular basis. They will learn life skills like cooking, developing their CVs, or getting their provisional licence. Jordan hopes he can take the boys to the Mendips and even France and Spain in the future.
“It gives them a whole massive outlet,” he says. “We are very grateful to Avon and Somerset police that they did this for us because it is a really big issue that we’re trying to eradicate from us in our makeup, in our DNA: this trauma that we just can’t get over.”
Cut to the bone
Spaces where young people can process their feelings and realise their potential are increasingly under threat by chronic underfunding as a result of 14 years of austerity. Indeed, funding for youth work has fallen by more than two thirds (68 per cent) in real terms in a decade.
Newly-published studies from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, supported by UK Youth, reveal that from 2011 to 2021, local authority youth provision funding in England fell in real terms from over £1bn to £408.5m, while the number of council-operated youth clubs nearly halved.
Since 2010, 750 youth clubs have closed in the UK and around 20 statutory-run youth clubs have closed in Bristol, with some reopening as third sector charity youth organisations.
In Knowle West, the fatal stabbings of Mason Rist and Max Dixon have renewed a community-led campaign for former youth centre Eagle House to be returned to young people.
The murder of Max and Mason has renewed calls for Eagle House in Knowle West to reopen – photo: Bristol24/7
The campaign highlights the impact of youth centre closures, and fears in local communities about the impact of the lack of safe and supportive spaces for young people.
Desmond Brown believes Bristol City Council could be doing more to tackle knife crime.
“We’ve had cuts to youth services so everyone has to fight for this money now. We can always find money down the back of the sofa for vanity projects, which are very important culturally.
“But I think it’s more important to fix our broken kids, because who’s going to be looking at it in 50 years time?We’re not going to have the young people around because they’ll be dead or in prison.”
“Young people should be able to run towards the police for protection”
Avon and Somerset police chief inspector Mike Vass has spent eight of his 20 years in the force leading its knife crime operation.
Mike’s role came out of a national increase in serious youth violence from 2016 to 2018, leading to a concerted response to tackle the issue of youth violence and knife crime in a targeted way.
We meet a day after 30-year-old Aliki Mamwa, known as Alex, died in hospital after being stabbed on the corner of Grosvenor Road and Ashley Road in St Paul’s – the latest fatal stabbing, and the oldest of recent victims.
Mike oversaw the launch of Avon and Somerset’s violence reduction programme in 2019, which works in partnership with health bodies, children’s services, social care, schools and charities on a local strategy to tackle serious violence and change the culture fuelling youth violence.
One of the sessions his team delivers in schools is around dispelling the myth that most young people carry knives.
He says this myth is often exaggerated by the media and spreads fear in local communities, leading to many young people picking up knives out of a perceived threat to their safety on the streets.
Results from Bristol’s latest quality of life survey, conducted by the council, suggest 21 per cent of Bristolians feel that fear of crime affects their day-to-day lives, rising from 17 per cent in 2022, and 16 per cent in 2021, showing that fear of crime appears to be a growing issue.
Sixteen per cent of people also feel the police and public services successfully tackle crime and anti-social behaviour locally, down from 22 per cent in 2022 and 28 per cent in 2021. Both results were much worse among survey respondents living in the poorest parts of Bristol.
“We’re not minimising it,” Mike admits. “But what we’re saying is that by having this perception, there’s this almost pressure or acceptance that it’s then OK to try and procure or buy something or get something to carry yourself to protect you.
“We need to show people you’re not safer just by carrying something – the risk is exponentially increased to you and everyone around you by just having it.”
Avon and Somerset police are aware of the challenges they face in gaining communities’ trust. It’s clear the police are not the only solution and, in fact, can sometimes be part of the problem.
Responding to a panel on youth violence held at Bristol Cathedral in March, the force’s chief constable, Sarah Crew, said she didn’t want her force to be “playing the role that we’ve been playing in the last few weeks”.
“There is something that is urgent for policing in all of this. When young people are in fear, they should be able to run towards the police for protection and safety and that isn’t happening, and that’s something we must urgently address.”
Crew has also admitted Avon and Somerset police is “institutionally racist”, but has vowed to tackle this with what she describes as “radical transparency”.
Nineteen of 33 people stopped and searched in a recent enhanced Avon and Somerset police operation were non-white.
The operation was criticised by community members, including Desmond – who is also independent chair of Avon & Somerset Criminal Justice Oversight Panel – for only covering predominantly non-white areas of Bristol like St Paul’s, Easton and Eastville, despite two murders recently taking place in south Bristol.
Legislative change
After his friend Adam Abrahim was stabbed in Castle Park in January 2023, Green councillor for Cotham, Mohamed Makawi, put forward a motion to tackle knife crime in the city.
His motion included a commitment by the council to spend £650,000 on increasing CCTV, developing a serious violence strategy, providing emergency bleed kits and training to nighttime venues.
“I wanted to do it for all the young people in Bristol to live a better life and for their parents to have assurance that when their kids go out, they don’t have to be worried about them,” he tells me.
Green councillor Mohamed Makawi and Green co-leader Carla Denyer stand by a knife surrender bin in Castle Park, where Mohamed’s friend died last year – photo: Mia Vines Booth
One year on, the plan is currently under review and Mohamed believes there is still work to be done. There are now 46 bleed kits – a specialist first aid kit that could well help save the life of someone who has been stabbed – installed across Bristol and counting, as part of plans to install 140 in the Bristol area.
A recent drive by the region’s metro mayor also saw over 100 young people across the West of England receive life saving skills at Ashton Gate so they know what emergency steps to take if someone has been stabbed.
Speaking at the event, metro mayor Dan Norris said he was working with anti-knife campaigners on introducing bleed kit training in more schools in the West of England, and had written to the education secretary after backing calls for such training to be compulsory in every school in the country.
There are also three knife amnesty bins – where people can anonymously surrender their weapons – in Bristol. One of which is in Castle Park, where Mohamed’s friend died a year ago.
Mohamed doesn’t believe CCTV will solve the problem of knife crime alone, and has been working with the Green Party co-leader and Clifton Down councillor Carla Denyer to support campaigns to reopen youth clubs across the city.
Carla has also been pushing for every school in the UK to have an in-house councillor. “Kids are struggling to process their feelings and they’re trying to get that out of their system,” she tells me. “And they could be scrapping and fighting because they don’t have anyone to talk to about it.”
At City Academy in Easton, the school has made counselling a priority, but with one counsellor for around 1,000 kids, the school has signed up to a national campaign to increase funding for mental health support in schools.
At a campaign meeting, one of the school counsellors argued poor mental health among young people can be both a symptom and a cause of knife crime and youth violence.
Two months on from the murder of Max, Mason and Darrian, it’s clear there’s a long way to go in the fight to tackle knife crime in Bristol.
But the spaces provided by Jordan, Martin, Courtney, Desmond, Serena and Young Huss can go some way in getting young people off the streets, empowering them and showing them a different future.
Whether it’s through Empire’s boxing class, Full Circle’s mental health support group, Growing Future’s prison rehabilitation programme, or an after school music class at Knowle West, each of these spaces can have a profound impact on a young person’s path in life.
When Martin pauses to look at the photos of all the young people that have passed through his gym, he’s filled with pride.
“We’ve never yet met one that we didn’t think would flourish to be honest,” he reflects. “Every young person who I’ve spoken to or worked with, they want to make a positive change in their life. They just don’t know how or where to start.
“So it’s given them an environment like this where they can make that positive change in their lives. It’s just about giving people a chance.”
Bristol24/7, in conjunction with media organisations, community leaders, campaigners and others, has launched Together for Change, a citywide campaign to end knife crime and the devastating impact it has on people’s lives. To get involved or speak to Bristol24/7 about this, please email ellie@bristol247.com.
This story was originally published in the May & June 2024 Bristol24/7 magazine
Main photo: Mia Vines Booth
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