Reduction required

VIOLENT and knife crime remains a blight on our streets in the North East, especially in some of our city centre areas.

For years excessive alcohol consumption, drug taking and high-spirited behaviour has combined to create unsavoury incidents – and a growing culture among young adults of carrying bladed weapons has contributed to many of those events being more serious and even deadly.

It is good to know, therefore, that the region’s largest police force, Northumbria, has a dedicated Violence Reduction Unit with the specific aim of tackling such crime.

That its director, Steven Hume, says that things may get worse before his unit gets to grips with the problem is less reassuring.

However, we do recognise that only a long-term strategy will reap the rewards we all hope the unit, now heading for its fourth year, will receive.

Patience is the required virtue here, but results are much-needed.