Concern over severity of knife crime injuries and age profile of offenders

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) has voiced concern over the fact that offenders involved in knife crime are getting younger and are inflicting more serious wounds on their victims.

Alf Hitchcock, the organisation’s lead on knife crime and deputy assistant commissioner with the Met highlighted the changing nature of such offences and the need for society to tackle such a threat.

His comment came in the week that the Home Office announced it was spending £5 million to stop the spread of knife crime and a further £3 million on a hard hitting advertising campaign.

Mr Hitchcock said: “There are two trends that we have observed over the last few years; the first being that the severity of injuries sustained through knife crime has become more serious and second that the age profile of offenders and victims has decreased from mid-to-late teens to early twenties down to early-to-mid teens.”

However, he emphasised that knife crime only accounted for a small proportion of all recorded crime but that its impact caused “massive grief and disruption to families and communities”.

“Communities perceive knife crime to be among the biggest threats and that is why we have a duty to the public to take a tough approach.”

Mr Hitchcock said he hoped the Home Office campaign would encourage young people to realise they should speak to one another, their parents and others around them for support.

“It should be remembered that you are more likely to be a victim of knife crime by carrying a knife, rather than a knife protecting you.”

The Home Office said this week that the radio web and mobile ads were designed by those most affected by knife crime and take a tough look at the consequences of violence.

The £3 million campaign will run for the next three years and was developed by a group of 18 young people who also wrote the scripts and recorded the radio adverts.

The teenagers from across England and Wales took part in a creative summit in April this year, sharing ideas about how to convince young people not to carry knives.

They developed the concept of a series of stabbings that could have been averted, and then created ads around that idea.

The ads will begin running in June on Kiss FM, Choice FM, Galaxy and Trent FM.

The campaign will run simultaneously alongside another series of ads encouraging mothers to talk about knives with their children

Khadijah Murchison, 18, from Bristol said he hoped the ads would make a real difference.

“All the young people that went to the creative summit have been affected by knife crime,” he said. “So to share our experiences with each other and come up with ideas and adverts that will help reduce knife crime was great.”

The Home Office will invest an additional £5 million in a nationwide effort to stop the spread of knife crime.

Speaking at a conference in Birmingham to recognise work done there to stop the spread of gang violence, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced the new funding.

She pledged further support for four regions that are leading the national effort to tackle gun crime and other violent criminality.

The money will be spent focusing on ten crime hotspots where more knife search arches and targeted stop and search operations will be used. It will also be used to support community projects.

Mrs Smith announced the introduction of measures to provide witnesses with guarantees that their identity will be protected and that they can give evidence safely; stop guns from coming into the country and provide safe housing and education opportunities for young people leaving gangs.

New laws are not the most effective way of tackling knife crime, the Conservatives said this week.

Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary said that existing laws should be enforced more effectively. He wants officers to be given greater discretion over using stop and search powers.

“Society also need