Our special report today on violent crime comes at a time when the nation seems more scared than ever of gangs and criminals, and their weapons – especially knives. It frustrates politicians that the fear of crime seems to keep rising, even as they pour money into extra policing and point to reports such as last week's British Crime Survey which show, in fact, declining levels of offences. What such politicians don't get, and what the official figures don't always show, is that the streets of our cities don't feel safe, especially to the old and the vulnerable.

There is plenty of evidence at hand to back up those fears, too. In hospitals in the west of Scotland, doctors like Devlin have to treat facial injuries caused by knives once every six hours. The World Health Organisation says Scottish teenagers are five times more likely to be murdered than those in England and Wales. In May 2006, the Medical Research Council said that knife-related violence had gone up by 164% in Scotland in 20 years. Even a conservative estimate suggests there are 1,000 active gang members in Glasgow – 70 years after No Mean City, scores of youths still meet to battle for territory with blades and bottles.

Of course, it is a fact that most victims of violence, and especially of knife crime, put themselves in positions of danger. A recent £3m Home Office campaign in England stressed that people who carried knives were much more likely to be stabbed than those who did not – and often by their own weapons. But innocent victims still get knifed, either as bystanders or as the victims of theft and other crime. That is why ordinary people are scared to go into city centres at night, or even down to their local shops after dark. And that is why more action is needed.

Some is already in hand, as our report today demonstrates. Strathclyde Police's Violence Reduction Task Force has made more than 300 arrests since its first raid on suspected gang members in March. It is right that resources are targeted at those who revel in a culture of fear and violence. Most of the public will also have some sympathy for a proposal being considered as part of the Criminal Justice Bill coming before Holyrood next term for a mandatory jail term for anyone caught carrying a knife. They will demand to know why, if as seems likely, the move is neutered or dumped as the proposal works its way through the legislative diluting machine.

For politicians, especially those in government, often find themselves caught in a cleft stick on crime – keen to portray themselves as 'tough on crime' but unable to see through their promises of action because they cannot be afforded. This dilemma afflicted the Scottish Government last term when it came under attack, especially from the Tories, on early prison releases – as had the previous Lab-Lib Dem administration. It also struck Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, over knife crimes last week. Smith appeared to back, only then to rule out, the idea of perpetrators of violent crime being made to see the consequences of their actions in visits to accident and emergency units.

The U-turn probably kicked in when the logistics of escorting thugs around hospitals became apparent, but was Smith entirely wrong? Doesn't it actually make sense to confront criminals with the results of their crimes – the split skulls, the bloody stitches, the distraught relatives, even the cold steel drawers of the morgue? We already have reformed addicts going into school to warn of the dangers of drugs, so why not let the limbless and the scarred show youngsters the grim results of joining a gang or going out armed with a knife?

What's the alternative? How else, as surgeon Mark Devlin asks, are we to stop the next generation of thugs and knife carriers? Doing nothing is not an option, whatever the latest crime figures say.