The Two Plagues of #Bristol: A City's Exhausted Police and Its Lost Generation.

As Bristol's police are stretched to breaking point by protests, local crime rates soar and youth unemployment reveals the true cause of the city's crisis.

So, another day of moan, moan, moan is it? Not without good reason of course, because to my best recollection, Bristol never used to be like this for as long as I've lived here. If it ain't protests about one thing, or another it's this! All of which has become a staple of Bristol news and Bristol current affairs.

Bristol's Knife Crime Problem 'Going Nowhere.'

And just like that, Bristol's "glimmer of hope" is a knife's edge away from turning into another headline. You read the official statements—the Avon and Somerset Police spokesperson claiming Bristol "remains a safe place to live and work." And you want to scream. Safe? Tell that to the parents of Mason Rist and Max Dixon, two kids who didn't even make it out of their teens. Tell that to the family of Darrian Williams, whose death led a judge to call this city a "plague of knife crime."

This isn't the Bristol I know. Not of a three-fold increase in knife offences in a decade. We've become a city where kids carry weapons and a leading campaigner, Leanne Reynolds, says the only reason we've had a break in the death toll is "luck." Seriously? That's our strategy?

I've been blogging about this stuff for a while, and the stats are a punch to the gut. No, we haven't had a fatal stabbing this year, but there were 31 knife-related homicides between 2016 and 2024. That's a body count, not a statistic. And let’s not get started on the word "homicide." When did we start talking like we're in a bad episode of a US crime drama? A life was taken. Call it what it is—murder. It makes the "official" numbers feel a little too tidy, a little too detached.

The police say they’re on it, that it's a "top priority." They've even seized 215 knives in the last six months. That's good, I guess. But for every knife in an amnesty bin, there's another being carried for "a reason," as Leanne Reynolds told Bristol Live. And she’s right. What are we doing about the reasons? She’s calling for more than just bins; she wants to ban face coverings and get support to the kids who turn in their weapons. Because if a kid has a knife, something's already gone wrong.

We're all tired of this. The "Together for Change" campaign is a great idea, but it shouldn't have been necessary. It's a reaction to a problem that's been festering for years, and it's a damning indictment of what came before. Until we stop pretending a lack of deaths is a victory and start asking the real questions, the only thing that's "going nowhere" is the problem itself.

Policing Bristol's Protests Is 'Not Sustainable.'

And while on the other side of the coin, we have the Police Federation sounding like a broken record. "Policing Bristol's protests is 'not sustainable.'" You don't say. It's almost comical, isn't it? The same police force that's apparently facing a crisis of "physical and emotional exhaustion" is dealing with the kind of people who have nothing better to do on a Saturday than don an adult nappy and scream at each other.

The Avon and Somerset Police Federation has now joined the chorus, complaining that their officers are losing rest days and getting injured while policing the endless parade of protests. They talk about officers being "emotionally and physically exhausted," and how it's "not sustainable." You almost feel for them, until you remember what they're up against: a bunch of emotionally incontinent individuals whose sole purpose in life seems to be getting a rise out of people.

Meanwhile, a recent anti-migrant protest in Castle Park saw the police accused by local councillors of acting like "hired thugs." Councillor Lisa Stone even said she was "picked up and thrown to the ground." Bristol Stand Up to Racism, a group that helped organise the counter-protests, was "appalled" at the police's behaviour. Chief Supt Mark Edgington, meanwhile, says his officers faced a "really challenging situation." Of course, there are the five complaints that the Professional Standards Department is "prioritising," with a promise of a thorough review—the bare minimum you'd expect when serious accusations are made.

And when you look at the numbers, you start to see just what a waste of resources it all is. As if that £59,000 per officer is just for them to sit there and look pretty. A proper breakdown shows that money, a slice of the £460 million police budget, has to cover everything. We're talking about vehicles, maintenance, the small army of civilian staff, all the gadgets, and probably a very expensive brand of teabags. All those millions, all that money for infrastructure and personnel, is being drained away to deal with emotionally incontinent adults acting out on our streets and other open spaces. It just makes you wonder where the real priorities are.

I did some digging, and it turns out the link between a police force stretched thin and a rising crime rate is more than just a theory. The numbers are in, and they're as depressing as a rainy bank holiday in Weston-super-Mare. While a bunch of grown-up toddlers are throwing their toys out of the pram in Castle Park, real crime is on the rise. According to the latest crime statistics Bristol has released, the total number of recorded crimes for 2024/25 was over 63,000. That's an increase of 8.3% on the previous year and the highest in eight years. Violence against the person crimes saw a jump of nearly 16%, with over 23,000 offences recorded. We're also seeing a consistent increase in vehicle offences and personal robbery. It's not just a statistic; it's the stuff that makes people scared to walk down their own streets.

Every time a unit is diverted to manage a protest about who knows what, that's a unit not investigating a robbery, or a violent assault, or a crime of any other sort. The time, money, and emotional energy—all those millions from our council tax—are being siphoned away from the work that actually keeps the rest of us safe. It's not an accident. It's a direct consequence of letting a vocal, self-important minority dictate where our limited resources go. And it's a hell of a price to pay for someone else's therapeutic day out.

The Real Cost of Crime.

And speaking of costs, I was curious. After all this talk about budgets and resources being stretched, I wanted to find out how much it costs to investigate a crime on average. You know, a simple number to put all of this into perspective.

Turns out, that's not a question they want to answer. The official line is that every case is different, so they can't give an average. A murder investigation is a completely different beast from a shoplifting case, which is fair enough. But it's a conveniently vague response. The closest you can get is a list of administrative charges, like the £153.98 for a crime report or the ridiculous £1,311.65 for a forensic collision investigator’s report.

The truth is, the real cost is buried deep in those massive budgets we were just talking about. It's a complex web of salaries, equipment, and overhead, all being pulled apart by the demands of these protests. The lack of a clear, per-crime cost isn't an accident; it's a useful bit of non-transparency that keeps us from knowing the true price of it all. It means we can't easily quantify the price of a protest or the real impact of a rising crime rate. And that, more than anything, tells you where the real priorities lie.

The Vicious Cycle: From NEET to Knife Crime.

This is why I felt it necessary to dig deeper into the statistics. Because while there are all these other crimes, my gut told me the problem was more specific. It's not just a general crime wave; it's a specific, undeniable trend of youth violence and offending. The kids are, in fact, not alright, and the official reports prove it.

For instance, a 2019 report on serious youth violence in Bristol found that between 2016 and 2019, 53% of the victims of that violence were aged 11 to 25. And the numbers for first-time entrants to the youth justice system in Bristol are 195.7 per 100,000 population, which is significantly higher than the national average.

And this is where the picture becomes truly clear. My digging revealed a far deeper rot than just a handful of kids making bad choices. While the adult-nappy-wearing brigade is busy getting their holiday snaps for social media, Bristol has a festering problem: a crisis of young people who aren't in education, employment, or training (NEET).

The figures are damning. Nearly 700 teenagers in Bristol aged 16 and 17 are not studying, working, or training, and a staggering 2,235 young adults are on unemployment benefits. This isn't happening in the affluent parts of the city, either. We're talking about the very same areas that have become synonymous with youth violence—places like Knowle West and Hartcliffe, which the Bristol Post has covered in detail, and where Mason Rist and Max Dixon were murdered. These are the same parts of the city that have poor job opportunities and public transport links so bad they’re a standing joke.

The Bristol City Council admits it’s a "huge worry" and a "loss to the city." They blame "bad buses and blasé businesses" for not stepping up with work experience. It's a neat little excuse for a complex failure, isn't it? Because every single one of those young people who are left behind, with no prospects and no hope, is a potential statistic. A statistic that contributes to the rising numbers of violence against a person, vehicle crime, and personal robbery that the police are too stretched to deal with.

So there it is. The adult nappy brigade’s protests are a very expensive, very public distraction from the real problem. The money and resources drained by their emotional incontinence are the same resources that could be used to prevent a generation of young people from becoming the very criminals the police are then too exhausted to catch. It’s a vicious, self-perpetuating cycle, and the only people paying the price are those who are too young or too ignored to have their voices heard.