Knife crime is out of control (Image: Getty)
The portrayal of butchery as a kind of contagious illness reveals an official mindset that treats dangerous offenders as victims of society, devoid of responsibility for their actions and in need of support rather than punishment.
Such fashionable handwringing has led to a chronic loss of nerve and moral confidence by the authorities.
In place of a real determination to tackle criminality, the forces of law and order are in retreat.
They have increasingly withdrawn the police from the streets, refused to hand out effective punishments and abandoned discipline in prisons.
In effect, we are living through a disastrous liberal experiment, where traditional rigour has given way to institutional cowardice dressed up as compassion and enlightenment.
With authority in collapse, the enemies of civilisation flourish.
Violent crime is up 19 percent over the past year, while fatal stabbings in the past 12 months, at 285, are the highest since records began after the Second World War.
Innocence is no protection against brutality, as shown by last weekend's horrific killings of teenagers Jodie Chesney in Harold Hill, Essex and Yousef Makki in Cheshire.
But the political class, gripped by paralysis, appears to have no solution to the crisis.
Bureaucratic tinkering and further excuse-making seem to be their favourite responses.
While he burbled about "disease" yesterday, the Home Secretary also boasted that he has established "a cross-party serious violence task force", and launched "an independent review into drug misuse".
That will really scare the daylights out of the knife-wielding thugs.
The airwaves have been filled with politicians and self-styled experts explaining that the crime wave is the result of poverty and inequality, so the state should pour more taxpayers' money into urban areas.
Only vast amounts of public cash can stop the bloodshed, goes this argument.
But this is more immoral, irresponsible nonsense.
Deprivation did not compel Jodie's killer to put a knife in her back.
Britain is one of the most prosperous, tolerant societies on earth, with a massive
