Knife crime offences in England and Wales: Key figures

West Midlands Police continue to have the highest rate of knife crime offences per 100,000 people.

A knife bin (Yui Mok/PA) (PA Wire)

Knife crime offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales increased year-on-year in the latest figures, but remain below pre-pandemic levels.

Some 50,510 offences were recorded in the 12 months to March 2024.

This is up 4% from 48,409 in the previous 12 months, but is 3% lower than the 51,982 in the year to March 2020.

These figures do not include Greater Manchester Police, due to issues involving the supply of data.

There has been a “notable increase” in the number of robberies involving a knife or sharp instrument, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which compiled the figures.

These jumped from 18,787 in 2022/23 to 21,226 in 2023/24, a rise of 13%, though the total is still lower than before the Covid-19 pandemic, with 22,727 recorded in 2019/20.

Knife-enabled homicides stood at 233 in the year to March 2024, up very slightly on the 226 in the previous year, but again lower than pre-pandemic figures (253 in 2019/20).

Some 5,411 offences classed as knife-enabled threats to kill were recorded in 2023/24, down 7% from 5,801 in 2022/23, but in both cases these figures are higher than those recorded before the pandemic (4,746 in 2019/20).

The number of offences classed as “possession of article with a blade or point” stood at 27,470 in the 12 months to March 2024, down 3% year-on-year from 28,391.

“This follows substantial increases in recent years, which may have been influenced by targeted police action to tackle knife crime,” the ONS said.

Police-recorded offences of possession of an article with a blade or point were 18% higher in 2023/24 than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20 (23,265), and nearly double the figure for 2016/17 (14,450).

Of the 50,510 knife crime offences in England and Wales in 2023/24, 30% (14,961) were recorded by the Metropolitan Police, 10% (5,268) by West Midlands Police and 5% (2,321) by West Yorkshire Police.

But when looking at the number of offences per population, West Midlands Police had the highest rate, with 178 per 100,000 people, followed by the Metropolitan Police (169 per 100,000), then Cleveland Police (137 per 100,000) and South Yorkshire Police (109 per 100,000).