Sosa Henkoma knows exactly why young people carry knives, because he lived it. Groomed into a gang at just 11-years-old, he skipped the so-called “knife stage” and was handed a firearm and a bulletproof vest before he hit his teens. Now the 26-year-old London resident is a criminology student, youth mentor and anti-trafficking campaigner, and he’s warning that the UK’s response to knife crime is ignoring the root causes and punishing trauma.
“We keep telling kids to put the knife down, but no one’s asking why they picked it up in the first place. That knife isn’t about wanting to hurt someone. It’s about not wanting to get hurt. It’s fear. It’s survival. When you grow up in danger, safety isn’t a default, it’s a privilege.”
Recent data shows knife-enabled crime in England and Wales rose again in 2024, with over 55,000 offences recorded, up 4% in a year and over 80% higher than a decade ago. Hospital admissions from knife assaults have risen 9%, and more than 40 children under 16 were hospitalised for stab injuries. In London, police dealt with nearly 12,800 knife-related crimes in a single year.
“Young people don’t feel safe, in their schools, in their communities, even in their own homes. So they carry something that makes them feel like they’ve got some control. And if society doesn’t see them as children, why would they see themselves that way either? Why would they trust anyone to protect them?”
Sosa’s journey into crime started young. He was abused at home and placed into care before being groomed on the streets. Older boys made him feel seen, gave him purpose, and then gave him orders, “My elders said we’d be letting them down if we weren’t carrying a ‘tool’. That’s what they called it. That was the standard. If you weren’t ready, you were a target.”
Between ages 11 and 22, Sosa was deeply embedded in criminality. He watched friends die, watched others go to prison, and went himself. It wasn’t until a solicitor recognised the trauma beneath his charges and got him support that he began to see his story differently.
“We’re not just failing kids, we’re criminalising them for surviving. A judge will tell a 14-year-old to take responsibility, but who taught them how? We want accountability from kids we’ve never supported. You don’t get that from punishment. You get that from trust. From consistency. From opportunity.”
Although some youth knife crime prosecutions have dipped slightly, the long-term picture remains worrying. Knife possession offences by children are still nearly 20% higher than ten years ago. Yet many of these young people have been groomed into gang activity, used, coerced, then punished.
“Lots of these kids are being exploited, they just don’t know that’s what it is. They think it’s family. They think it’s loyalty. They think it’s on them. I’ve stood in youth courts next to boys who were shaking because they’d been told they’d be killed if they didn’t take the charge. That’s not choice. That’s fear. And prison doesn’t heal fear, it deepens it.”
For Sosa, the solution lies not in harsher sentencing or zero-tolerance rhetoric, but in prevention and community investment, “We need youth clubs. We need local sports tournaments across postcodes to break this idea of postcode wars. We need trips and mentoring and spaces where kids can just breathe.”
He’s now mentoring over 60 high-risk young people, training professionals on exploitation and youth engagement, and consulting on national anti-trafficking strategy. His work centres lived experience, because that’s what changed his life.
“Opportunity plus collaboration equals growth. If you don’t give young people a path out, they’ll follow the one in front of them, even if it leads to prison or death. I was told I’d never make it out. I did, but I shouldn’t have had to do it alone. And I shouldn’t be the exception.”
Sosa says this is not just a policing issue. It’s a safeguarding issue, a community issue, and a systemic issue, “It takes a village to raise a child, but right now, a lot of kids don’t have a village. So they build their own protection. Sometimes that looks like a knife. Sometimes it’s a gang. But until we change the world they’re growing up in, we’re just going to keep asking them to survive it, and blaming them when they do.”
