Our ambition to halve knife crime within a decade will not be easy. But it is necessary, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer wrote in a foreword to a Home Office plan, ‘Protecting Lives, Building Hope’.
Among the wide-ranging proposals are to tackle the causes of knife crime in schools; reduce access to violent material online; and ‘better targeted’ ‘stop and search’ by police at ‘knife crime hotspots’.
Home Office Crime and Policing Minister Sarah Jones said: “Knife crime devastates lives and families across the country โ and the majority of it takes place on just a small number of streets across the country. We will deploy state of the art mapping to identify these hotspots and target them with police patrols, Live Facial Recognition and knife arches to catch these criminals.ย This government will halve knife crime within a decade, saving lives and protecting communities.”
Sarah Jones visited one knife crime hotspot, Brixton in south London, in February, hearing that public space CCTV ‘and redesign of key sites to prevent weapon storage and drug dealing’ were among ‘key interventions’.
According to the document, the Government has ‘already turned the rising tide on knife crime into a decline’. While knife crime is a national issue, it mainly occurs in highly concentrated areas in major metropolitan centres, shaped by distinct local conditions and pressures. In some of these locations, robbery linked to the night-time economy is often a significant driver of knife crime, the plan states. Three police force areas account for nearly half of all knife-enabled crime in England and Wales: the Met, West Midlands, and Greater Manchester. Soho and Westminster in London and Birmingham city centre are singled out as ‘knife crime concentrations’. As for tackling such crime, among proposals are CCTV coverage to minimise blind spots and improve the use of retrospective facial recognition; more use of detached youth workers to reach out to younger people at higher risk; and use of knife wands and knife arches. “Tactics proven to work will be scaled up and deployed to other higher risk areas across England and Wales.”
Transport
As for knife crime on public transport, the plan states that Network Rail will connect station CCTV images to the police and the wider rail industry. “Current connectivity means criminal investigations can be delayed by days or even weeks while police and rail staff physically collect images from stations across the network.”
While the Home Office makes much of falls in recorded knife crime – and its plan is titled ‘Plan to Halve Knife Crime’ – the plan acknowledges that knife carrying is not included in overall knife crime statistics, ‘but understanding it matters, because if someone is carrying a knife, a conflict is more likely to result in serious threat or injury’. In the year to September 2025, the incidents of knife possessionย encountered by the police increased by one per cent. As for enforcement, it’s admitted that in about half of knife-enabled robbery offences nationally, suspects are not identified.
Survey
A Youth Endowment Fund survey last year found that most teens who carry weapons have been victims of violence; which suggests that ‘cycles of violence’ may drive some children to arm themselves for defence or retaliation.
Strands
The document has four strands: support for young people ‘so they get a better start in life’; stopping those at risk from turning to knife crime; policing streets ‘to punish perpetrators and stop offending’; and ending ‘the cycle of knife crime’. While most drug users do not commit knife crime, the document noted that ‘drug use and drug markets are associated with knife crime and serious violence’. Among proposals are ‘a new national approach to identify, prioritise and manage habitual knife offenders who pose the greatest risk to public safety and often have complex needs’.
Comment
One of a Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime set up by Sir Keir Starmer’s Government of charities and campaigners is the charity Catch 22, which described the plan as a ‘welcome and ambitious step’. It pointed out that such crime is a symptom of much deeper and long-standing issues: poverty and inequality, school exclusions and absence, early childhood trauma, unmet poor mental health and SEND needs, dire youth provision, and the difficulties in tackling the criminal gangs grooming these children into violence and exploitation. Catch 22 welcomed that the plan ‘spans upstream prevention, early intervention, targeted policing and new offences, and an overhaul of especially the youth justice system’. The charity pointed to the need for accountability and system capacity โ keeping also in mind the long timelines of reforms in policing, NHS, and education. Put another way, the charity questioned if the plan would have the investment to match; and how local needs could be targeted and met, given the abolishing of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs).
PCC view
Thames Valley PCC Matthew Barber, Joint Lead on Serious Violence for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC),ย noted the pledge to halve knife crime but added the need for more than ‘warm words from Westminster’ to make it happen. He pointed to the link between knife crime and drugs (‘County Lines is a real concern’). Kitchen knives, he wrote, are the most commonly used weapon. “Governments can confuse activity with outcomes, and new legislation alone will not change peopleโs attitudes to knife carrying.”
Photo by Mark Rowe, street art, Brighton.
