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I doubt anyone in this country failed to hear about the number of teenagers who died last year after being stabbed by other teenagers using a knife.

were reported to have died, 23 of those in , but the official figures are still to be released.

No surprise then that the declared knife crime its .

National newspapers like and started campaigns and petitions.

Politicians also moved up a gear and the Government took any opportunity to explain what they were doing. As part of their, they invested millions in shock advertisement campaigns, including posters showing severed fingers and gaping wounds.

Much was reported about why there was a problem and what needed to be done. There was even some controversy about whether white knife victims received more media attention than black victims.

Former teenage gang members and many other practitioners and volunteers were consulted and quoted.

As I followed the reports it was the families of victims, who always gave the most compelling and emotional opinion and that made me question what more could be done.
Mary the mother of a 15 year old girl stabbed to death by a 17 year old girl wanted to meet her daughters' murderer. She told me she had forgiven her but wanted to ask her why she did it.

And that got me thinking...

I first approached the with a request to visit young knife offenders in the summer of 2008. At the time I wanted to make a programme to show other teenagers where they will end up if they carry or use a knife.

A few months later, just as I was beginning to feel the opportunity to get some answers for the families of some victims was going to be a tough door to open, the Ministry of Justice agreed to allow us to interview young knife offenders in their prison cells.

Once inside I found it tough.

I sat on the bed of a teenager serving life for killing another kid, hearing him explain why it happened; what he thinks would stop others picking up a knife; how sorry he is for what he's done and how now he has to face the consequences.

These knife killers and offenders offered a rare but important insight into how to deal with knife crime. They told me those caught with a knife should go to prison. In the programme they said it is the only way to teach them and others carrying a knife or using a knife is wrong.

But one of the questions they could not answer was how they were going to survive serving a long prison sentence. Some of the offenders I met during the initial meeting were serving minimum 15 to 25 years for their offence.

One of the boys told me he was 18 and wouldn't get out until he was in his mid thirties. He wondered how he would cope locked in a confined space for all those years; not being able to walk to the shop, do simple things like open a door for himself as prison gates and cell doors do not have handles, just locks.

The tragedy is that these offenders only truly realized the price they would pay for carrying a knife, after they went to prison. By then it was too late for them and the families of victims, as one offender recognized:

"To be honest I could say I'm sorry, but sorry's not gonna bring their son back...I can say sorry and I mean I'm sorry like for the boy's parents and his family coz now they've got one less person at the Christmas table, but sorry's not gonna bring their son back. I know, I know personally they're not gonna wanna hear, I know that, there's nothing more I can say. I am sorry but who's gonna wanna believe that."