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LONDON — In an attempt to tackle domestic violence, the police in a
British county came up with a startling plan: Replace the sharp knives
in victims’ kitchens with blunt-tipped instruments to prevent their
partners from stabbing them to death.

While the blunt-knives proposal was only one among many by the
Nottingham City Council to tackle knife crime, it was immediately
singled out for criticism by medical experts and advocates for
domestic abuse survivors, who called it “ludicrous” and ill conceived.

The proposal by the Nottinghamshire Police, in the East Midlands of
England, comes as Britain struggles with an epidemic of knife crime
outside the home, which some analysts say is fueled by reductions in
the nation’s police forces under austerity and cuts to social service
programs.

In Nottinghamshire, the police say domestic abuse cases involving
knives make up 17 percent of all the county’s reported knife crimes.
In an effort to address the issue, the Nottinghamshire police bought
100 knives specifically manufactured without points to replace kitchen
knives in the homes of Britons who have been attacked or threatened
with a knife, a police spokesman said.

The initiative was part of a larger strategy to tackle the level of knife-related episodes taking place in homes across the county,
officials said. The knives would still be sharp enough to cut food,
the police said, and the results of the small-scale trial would be
evaluated at the end of the year.

“It is only one small part of the whole range of what is done to
safeguard and protect domestic abuse survivors,” Superintendent Matt
McFarlane, who leads the Nottinghamshire police’s knife crime
strategy, said in an emailed statement on Thursday. The police also
said they were uncertain if this was the first time such a program was seriously considered anywhere.

But at least one critic said the proposal betrayed a lack of
understanding about domestic-abuse issues that was literally
laughable. Jessica Eaton, a psychologist and founder of VictimFocus, a
research consultancy in forensic psychology, feminism and mental
health, said that when she first read of the proposal, she thought it
had come from an article in The Onion, the satirical newspaper.

“The problem is not the sharpness of the knife,” she said. “The
problem is male violence.”

She said in a phone interview on Thursday: “The risk comes from the
offender, not the knife. We know that blunt trauma can cause death.
Just because a knife has been blunted doesn’t mean that it won’t
pierce the skin or kill someone.”

Charlotte Kneer, the chief executive of Reigate and Banstead Women’s
Aid, a refuge and charity based in Surrey, England, agreed that the Nottinghamshire police’s approach was ill advised, further
perpetuating the myth that domestic violence was a “crime of passion.”

“Domestic abuse is about control,” she said by phone. “Perpetrators
know exactly what they’re doing.”

Ms. Kneer said she had been attacked with kitchen knives twice by a
former partner. The second time, the attacker placed a plastic bag
over her head. “Do you want to ban all plastic bags?” she said. “It’s
just not the answer.”

Samantha Billingham of the Survivors of Domestic Abuse support group,
told the BBC: “I think it’s quite ludicrous. The blade of the knife is
still there.”

But Paddy Tipping, the Nottinghamshire police and crime commissioner,
told local news media: “It is an excellent initiative. Some research
shows that women are attacked around 19 times before they leave their
home.”

One domestic abuse survivor, Fiona McCulloch, 38, of Chilwell,
England, also told The Nottinghamshire Post that the plan was “100
percent positive.” She added: “To have a blunt knife in my situation,
it would have taken that risk away.”

This week, the Ministry of Justice said that the number of people
caught carrying knives and other offensive weapons in England and
Wales had reached a nine-year high. Offenses involving such weapons
have risen by 34 percent, to 22,041, since 2015 — the highest number
since 2010, according to the ministry.

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The number of domestic abuse cases recorded by the police in England
and Wales has also increased, and reports estimate that two million
adults across England and Wales ages 16 to 59 experienced domestic
abuse in the past year.

For years, social and domestic abuse has taken a hefty economic cost
on society, experts say. In 2016, a report by the British government
sought to quantify it. It put the estimated cost of domestic abuse in
the year ending March 2017 at 66 billion pounds, or about $84 billion,
in England and Wales.

This year, the British government published a landmark domestic abuse
bill that advocates say has the potential to overhaul how the police
and courts confront the issue head on. It would introduce a statutory definition of domestic abuse, establish a domestic abuse commissioner
and ban the cross-examination of victims by their abusers in family
courts.

A joint committee in Parliament is expected to publish a report on the
draft legislation on Friday, when members of Parliament will
scrutinize its contents.

As the negative reaction grew on social media, the Nottinghamshire
police began walking back the proposal, saying, “It’s just a very
early idea and may not ever be rolled out.” None of the blunted knives
had been handed out yet. If the program does go forward, the
authorities said, the knives would be place in “appropriate high risk
domestic situations.”

Ms. Kneer said she doubted that the police plan would reduce
knife-related domestic abuse crimes in the home, and that it would
have no impact on knife crime in the streets.

She said the solution should not rely “on a blunt knife in the kitchen
drawer.”

Knock all the stupid bitch's teeth out and she won't need a knife of
any sort in the kitchen drawer.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/world/europe/domestic-abuse-blunt-knives.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage&smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

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