Knife attacks in Hanover have risen by 20 percent
The next knife attacks: A bicycle thief stabbed in Misburg on Saturday, in Linden on Rampenstrasse the attack was impossible out of nowhere. Motive for the act: unknown. The alleged perpetrator was drunk.
The Hanover Police Directorate (PD) speaks of a “young phenomenon”: more and more people are stabbed with a knife in disputes. Compared to 2019, this form of offense has increased by 20 percent, said PD spokesman Marcus Schmieder on request from the NP. In 557 offenses (2020), 60 percent of the victims remained uninjured. 87 percent of the identified suspects were male, 31 percent were under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.
Also recently, the acts have piled up in Bothfeld, about two men attacked each other with hammer and knife. In Bemerode, a 45-year-old man hit a young man with his knife, and his dog also bit. In Seelze, a 19-year-old was critically injured in a knife fight.
Knife – a symbol of masculinity
The violence researcher Professor Dirk Baier has established an “ominous alliance” between images of masculinity and the wearing of knives. This trend has increased especially among young migrants from southern Europe or the North African and Arab regions.
The PD Hannover says on this point that 48 percent of the suspects are “of non-German origin”. A fuzzy category because many people with a migration background have German citizenship. But it is also clear that carrying knives is also an issue for German men. It is also known from Berlin that many of the knife piercers are young. In Hanover last year, 78 percent of the suspects were adults, eight percent adolescents (up to 21 years old), eleven percent young people (up to 18 years old) and three percent children (up to 14 years old).
Attack requires mental preparation
Criminologists are still puzzling over the reasons for the increase in this type of crime. One reason is for sure that knives are easily accessible, says Professor Thomas Bliesener, Director of the Criminological Research Institute Lower Saxony (KFN). But: “A knife attack requires mental preparation”, later Bliesener in the online magazine “web.de”. Someone who attacks a person with a knife has probably played it through repeatedly, at least in his head.
But why do the predominant young perpetrators even go off with a knife? Those affected said in order to be able to defend themselves, says Professor Bliesener. What role does fear play? Is it about group recognition when you carry a knife? What does this have to do with masculinity? There is a need for research here.
The prevention program “Knives make murderers” has been in place in Berlin since 2012. Policemen go to schools and warn against arming themselves. Because the wrong decision has already been made when you put a knife in your pocket. At the end of 2019, the legislature changed the Weapons Act. The federal states can now introduce “knife prohibition zones”. The law prohibits the carrying of knives with a blade length of four centimeters in certain areas – whether it is a crime focus or not.
Even if many knife attacks are often random crimes: The police in Hanover were able to identify suspects in 81 percent of the cases last year.
By Thomas Nagel