As the Scottish Government seeks to address youth violence, has a generation already fallen through the cracks?

The death of Kayden Moy, the 16-year-old who died after being stabbed at Irvine beach last month, is the latest reminder that Scotland is dealing with an epidemic of youth violence. 

Kayden is the third teenager who has died from knife violence in Scotland in the last 12 months. In March,15-year-old schoolboy Amen Teklay died in a stabbing and 16-year-old Kory McCrimmon was killed after being stabbed in a park in Glasgow in June last year. Every person charged in relation to these deaths was under 18, the youngest 13. 

And there’s been many other instances of youth knife violence in Scotland in the last 12 months. During the same weekend Kayden was killed, a 17-year-old was stabbed at Portobello beach in Edinburgh, resulting in a 16-year-old being charged with attempted murder, while a 14-year-old was caught in possession of a weapon in the area on the same day.  

I witnessed knife violence myself in Glasgow last year. From the inside of a locked-down pub, I watched on as two groups of teenagers chased each other with knives in the city centre. 

While it’s worth mentioning that serious assaults by 11 to 18-year-olds fell 27 per cent between 2019/20 and 2024/25, according to Police Scotland, it’s clear that there is a very worrying pattern of the most extreme violence between under-18s emerging.  

The Scottish Police Authority says contributing factors to youth violence are “complex” and “shaped by a variety of social, psychological and environmental factors” and addressing them requires an understanding of the underlying causes, broader societal issues and individual challenges that many young people face. Some of the factors it has highlighted are the impact of the pandemic, lack of social and emotional support, and the increased use of technology and social media.  

The latter has been evident in the rise in violence in schools, which has consistently linked with exposure to male influencers like Andrew Tate, who has promoted violence against women in his social media posts.  

Before the night Kory McCrimmon died, it was reported he and the 14-year-old who admitted to killing him had exchanged threats on social media related to a dispute over £50. It has been reported that Kory’s attacker repeatedly threatened to “chop” him “up” and to kill him.

In response to the recent events, the Scottish Government has acknowledged there is a serious problem, hosting a summit on youth violence yesterday that brought together voices from across Scotland to focus on prevention and early intervention. It also has shown action by increasing the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit’s funding by seven per cent – reversing an earlier decision to cut its budget by £35,500 pounds.  

Ahead of the summit, the first minister said “the role of youth work and grassroot community intervention in all this is key”. It’s now time to listen to calls from Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton about the need for greater investment in youth work, which come at a time when many charities which run much of Scotland’s youth work services are warning that lack of funding could lead to extinction. Losing this arm of prevention and early intervention is unthinkable.

While it seems the government is beginning to take this seriously, there is a generation of children who have already been deeply affected by the dangerous side of social media and social isolation during the pandemic. 

Isn’t it the case that prevention and early intervention is too late for some of them, and if so, what will become of the aptly named ‘lost generation’?