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Knife crime increases again, police figures show
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Knife crime in England and Wales has increased again, according to the latest figures from police forces.
In the 12 months to the end of June 2019, knife crime offences rose by 7%, reaching a record high.
But the picture on knife crime is mixed – with a fall in the number of homicides related to knife crime.
The data, from the Office for National Statistics, also found a 11% rise in the number of recorded robberies, while fraud offences went up by 15%.
According to the ONS, which published its latest figures on Thursday, the number of offences involving a knife or sharp instrument increased from just over 41,000 in the year to June 2018 to just over 44,000 in the last 12 months.
The knife crime figures do not include Greater Manchester Police, which records data differently.
It marks a new record level since 2011, the year that knife crime statistics started to be gathered in a unified way.
But the ONS added: “The number of homicides where a knife or sharp instrument was involved decreased by 14%.
“This decrease was mainly driven by falls in London.
“There is a mixed picture in the total number of offences involving knifes or sharp instruments across different police force areas, with the Metropolitan Police recording little change in the last year.”
The total number of homicides recorded by the police also fell by 5% in the last year, from 719 to 681 offences.
Meanwhile, a separate Crime Survey for England and Wales, which includes offences that are not reported to police, indicated a continuing rise in fraud.
The survey’s latest estimates show a 15% increase in fraud offences, driven by a 17% rise in “bank and credit account fraud”.
It said there were 3,863,000 fraud offences in the year to June.
Almost 2.7m of those were bank and credit account fraud offences, up from 2.3m the previous year.
But the survey, which measures people’s experience of crime, found fewer than one in six incidents of fraud were reported by the victim to the police or Action Fraud.
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