Knife crime offences: What the official figures show

More than half of forces in England and Wales recorded fewer knife crime offences in 2022/23 than in 2019/20.

Knife crime offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales have risen in the past year but have not yet returned to levels seen before the Covid pandemic (Alamy/PA)

Knife crime offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales have risen in the past year but have not yet returned to levels seen before the Covid pandemic.

Some 50,489 offences were recorded in the year to March 2023.

This is up from 48,204 in the previous 12 months but lower than the 54,293 in the year to March 2020.

Knife-enabled homicides are also below pre-pandemic levels, as well as falling year-on-year.

A total of 234 homicides involving a knife or sharp instrument were recorded in 2022/23, down 15% from 275 in 2021/22 and down 11% on the 263 in 2019/20.

Data for knife-enabled threats to kill shows an upwards trend, however.

There were 4,858 of these offences recorded in England and Wales in 2019/20, rising to 4,966 in 2020/21, 5,787 in 2021/22 and 6,021 in 2022/23.

All figures have been published by the Home Office together with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and do not include Devon & Cornwall Police due to a change in the way data is recorded by the force.

Of the 50,489 knife crime offences in 2022/23, 25% (12,755) were recorded by the Metropolitan Police, 10% (5,188) by West Midlands Police and 6% (3,197) by Greater Manchester Police.

But when looking at the number of offences per population, West Midlands Police had the highest rate, with 178 per 100,000 people in 2022/23, followed by Cleveland Police (159 per 100,000), then the Metropolitan Police (145 per 100,000) and South Yorkshire Police (119 per 100,000).

More than half of police forces in England and Wales recorded fewer knife crime offences in 2022/23 than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20, including some of the largest forces such as the Metropolitan Police, West Yorkshire Police and Merseyside Police.

Among the 17 forces that recorded more knife crime offences in 2022/23 than 2019/20 were Greater Manchester (0.4% higher) and West Midlands (3% higher), along with Cleveland (28% higher), Staffordshire (46% higher) and the British Transport Police (92% higher).

Separate data published by the Metropolitan Police shows the force recorded 9,541 knife crime offences in January to August this year.

This is up from 7,969 in the same period in 2022 but below the 10,207 recorded in January to August 2019.

The force recorded 2,531 knife crime offences involving injury in January to August this year, up from 2,346 in the same period in 2022 but below the 2,758 in January to August 2019.