What is knock-lit?
It is a term used to describe an emerging genre of literature, written by people who have either experienced ‘the knock’ for a relative or friend. Knock-lit can also be written by professionals who work in this arena, and by those with an interest in the subject.
What is ‘the knock‘?
This is when police arrive at a home to make an arrest because someone at the property has committed sexual offences related to children.
But surely, they deserve all they get, right?
Innocent family members, often including children, (BBC Radio 4, 2022) are left in an awful situation, with the impending threat of social isolation, social service scrutiny, loss of income, community backlash, media exposure, vigilante attacks, shunning by friends and family and perhaps having to flee their home and change their name.
Many of these offences are online. It is a growing issue, with complex solutions.
“Viewing sexual images of children online is never victimless. These are crimes which destroy and devastate lives, including the lives of the children and families of people arrested.
We are seeing more and more the devastation left behind when a family member is arrested for this kind of offending.” (NPCC Lead for Child Protection, Ian Critchley, 2023)
When ‘the knock’ happens to a family member who doesn’t live in the same house, it can be just as traumatic and bring similar consequences for relatives.
The shock is always immense and there is no statutory support for people. They are often left in the dark and forced to navigate a traumatic and lonely path.
But these must be quite rare? Um, no actually.
A new high of 30,925 offences that involved the possession and sharing of indecent images of children were committed in the year 2021/2022, according to the NSPCC. (BBC News, 2023)
And what’s even more shocking is that heavy pornography use can be a pathway to accessing child abuse images (Police Professional, 2023)
Big tech is currently not held accountable, whereas the individual is. Sexual offences are the second most represented offence in the UK prison population. Big tech has facilitated the exponential growth of offending and has yet suffered no consequence. In fact, Big tech continues to profit from the creation and sharing of child abuse images and videos. Countless numbers of these images and videos have been monetised with adverts.
Methods to stem the flow of offending have so far failed. There needs to be more focus on understanding the causes and preventing those, as well as regulation of Big Tech and mainstream pornography sites.
Pornhub has hosted an unimaginable number of illegal videos…which as yet, they have not been held accountable for. Laila Micklewait has been investigating Pornhub for a few years, and writes about her findings on her Twitter account. The New York Times published an expose in September 2020 entitled ‘The Children of Pornhub’.
Currently, these experiences have very little representation in literature (there is some, which I will address in future blog posts). Considering the number of people impacted, it is essential that the experiences and voices of family members are represented.
The focus of knocklit is on the experiences of those whose voices are unheard. Whether the offences are online or otherwise, family members are dragged into an unending horror, through no fault of their own.
I hope to work with and support people to express their experiences through writing, whether fiction, nonfiction, poetry, blogs, script or experimental forms, so please follow my blog for future projects. If you are a family member/ professional affected by the knock or a writer with a general interest in this subject please do get in touch.
Of course, you may not wish to categorise your work as knock-lit. Anything goes - just write!
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