Can Brixton's 'hyperlocal' approach cut knife crime?

On the 12th anniversary of her son's murder, Pastor Lorraine Jones Burrell tells me she is smiling.

"I was crying earlier," she explains. "But today, I smile with hope."

Dwayne Simpson was fatally stabbed in February 2014. A victim of the very same violence in Brixton that his mother, as a church minister, had supported other families through.

Following his death, Jones Burrell took over the running of her son's boxing club, as a way to try to steer young people away from knife crime. But she says it is only recently that she has started to feel a sense of change.

Teenage homicide, which hit record levels in 2021, is at its lowest in more than a decade and in the borough of Lambeth, police say knife crime offences have fallen by 35% in the past year.

"It's bitter sweet," she acknowledges. "I understand the pain that those families are going through. But the fact that it is coming down is a massive achievement."

Even so, Brixton - or specifically a small area of it - has been highlighted as a hot spot for knife-enabled crime by the Home Office.

Insp Ollie Lamb, from the Metropolitan Police, says it has been selected under a programme known as "hex-mapping", which involves analysing the crime data across more than 1.5 million hexagon shaped zones in England and Wales.

"What's interesting is only 44 of those 1.5 million 'hexes' have a cluster of knife crime issues," he explains, "and in Lambeth, our hexagon is in Brixton town centre."

Four other "hexes" in London have also been highlighted by the Home Office: Westminster, Croydon, Haringey and Southwark.

It said over £2m had been allocated to be shared across those boroughs so police, local councils and other community groups could work together to find "hyperlocal, targeted interventions".

Lamb says in Brixton this has meant using the data to understand the "ecosystem" driving knife crime around Electric Avenue, Acre Lane and Effra Road.

He points out nearby St Matthews Churchyard where he says many knives have been recovered, suspected of being used in robberies and shoplifting.

The council has installed improved lighting and CCTV, he explains, while in Windrush Square, they are trialling a so-called "safe hub" for the next three months.

The hub - a large tent - is pitched in the square from 3.30pm to 10.30pm from Thursday to Saturday when data shows a spike in crime. It is intended to provide a welcoming space.

Police patrols are also focused around those key times, Lamb added.

Jones Burrell said many of those involved in crime were under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

"Since we've come out of lockdown, it's affected so many people's mental health.

"The cost of living crisis, there's so many different avenues of challenges and people have literally broken."

She's delighted to see the police, council, local businesses and youth outreach teams working together to find solutions.

"We've been crying for safe hubs for Lambeth for decades."

However, not everyone is convinced by the "hyperlocal" approach.

Susan Hall, the leader of the Conservative group at City Hall, is more concerned about the Met's shrinking police force.

It lost 1,461 officers in the year ending September 2025, a fall of 4.3% compared to the previous year, according to Home Office figures.

The Met has warned it is facing a £260m funding gap and is making a number of cuts to services, including closing 10 police front counters.

"It's visibility of policing that actually helps when we do have knife crime," said Hall.

She is calling for a tougher approach to children caught carrying knives, including the increased use of stop and search powers.

"I do think there are other ways of spending £2m, and I would certainly say visibility of police on the streets is far more important than a safe hub."

Policing Minister Sarah Jones, who is also MP for Croydon West, defended the scheme saying the Met has had an increase in funding.

"Are there challenges? Of course there are. Would we all like there to be more money? Of course we would. So the key here is to try and be effective with the money that we've got.

"We've seen some innovation across the country, some quite interesting different ways of working. So we are helping to bring people together. We don't say this is the answer to everything, but it is an intervention that will see results."

Pointing to the fall in recorded offences in London, she said the government was making "real progress" towards its promise of halving knife crime in a decade.

More than 14,800 offences were recorded by the Met in the year ending September 2025, a fall of 11% compared to the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

According to data on the force's website, around 60% of knife-enabled offences last year related to robbery, and around one in four crimes resulted in injury.

However, the stabbing of two boys aged 12 and 13 at Kingsbury High School in north-west London earlier this month highlighted fresh concerns around the safety of young people.

Last week, police made an appeal for help to find the killer of an 18-year-old who was fatally stabbed in Peckham in south London on Valentine's Day.

Jones acknowledged there was a lot more to be done, including examining legislation around the online sale of knives and more support for young people.

"Stop and search will always be part of the solution, but it's not the only solution and I think it's very unimaginative to think that it is."

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