British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today said people carrying knives would be "caught, prosecuted and punished" as he defended his handling of knife crime following a spate of stabbing deaths.
"We need to make it absolutely clear to everyone, but especially young people, that in our country there are boundaries of acceptable behaviour, that it is completely unacceptable to carry a knife," he told his monthly news conference.
Four fatal stabbings in one day in London last week, taking the total killed with knives in the city this year above 50, has returned the issue of violent crime to the top of the political agenda.
The capital's Metropolitan Police Service says tackling knife crime has now overtaken counter-terrorism as its main priority.
Senior Scotland Yard officer Alf Hitchcock, the government's newly appointed "knife tsar", said stab injuries had become more severe and were being committed by younger offenders.
Mr Brown said the government was taking a range of measures to reduce the menace of knife attack, including more visible policing, greater stop-and-search powers, increasing use of metal detectors and tougher prison sentences or community punishments.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said on Sunday that those convicted of carrying knives would be made to visit hospital emergency wards in an attempt to confront them with the reality of stab wounds.
The plans have been criticised by criminal justice experts and the families of victims, who say they would have little effect, however.
Reuters