The number of knife or sharp instrument offences recorded by the police in London rose to approximately 16,344 in 2024/25, compared with 15,016 in the previous year. This was the highest number of knife crime offences reported in London during this provided time period. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20, knife crime in London increased yearly, with a particularly large increase occurring between 2016/16 and 2017/18. A wider trend The increase in knife crime witnessed in London has occurred alongside a general increase in overall crime throughout England and Wales. In 2022/23, there were approximately 6.74 million crime offences across England and Wales, compared with just over four million ten years earlier. During a similar time period, the number of knife homicides also increased, and reached 282 in 2017/18, compared with 186 in 2014/15. Due to strict gun laws in the United Kingdom, firearms are rarely used to commit homicides, with knives or other sharp instruments being used in over 46 percent of homicides in 2023/24. Acid and moped attacks While knife crime in London has certainly been given a lot of attention by the British media, the increase in acid and moped attacks during the same time period also generated many headlines. In 2017, for example, there were 471 acid attacks recorded by the Metropolitan Police, compared with just 51 in 2007. Moped crime also reached high levels in 2017, with both types of crime declining to much lower levels by the early 2020s. Although overall crime in London continued to rise until 2019/20, this fell back during the COVID-19 pandemic, but by 2023/24, the number of crimes committed in the capital had exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

Police recorded crime figures by Police Force Area and Community Safety Partnership areas (which equate in the majority of instances, to local authorities).

In 2023, there were over 1.8 million assaults in the United States where personal weapons, such as hands, fists, or feet, were used. There were a further 149,766 assault offenses where handguns were used. What are firearms? Firearms are portable weapons used to shoot bullets. There are several different types of firearms, which include rifles, shotguns, machine guns, and pistols. Gun laws in the United States vary from state to state, where some states have stricter laws than others. Each state has their own constitution, which allows them to have their own interpretation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Gun culture in the United States is a large part of certain regions, where they share similar attitudes and beliefs about firearms and their right to own them. Aggravated Assault Aggravated assault is an intended action to cause serious bodily harm to someone else. In 2023, New Mexico had the highest rate of aggravated assault in the U.S., with Alaska, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana rounding out the top five. In contrast, the reported violent crime rate has decreased significantly since 1990, meaning that the U.S. is safer now than it was thirty years ago.

Number of serious violent offences are recorded by the police and involve the use of a knife or other sharp instrument.

Number of homicide victims, by method used to commit the homicide (total methods used; shooting; stabbing; beating; strangulation; fire (burns or suffocation); other methods used; methods used unknown), Canada, 1974 to 2024.

Handguns are by far the most common murder weapon used in the United States, accounting for 7,159 homicides in 2023. This is followed by firearms of an unstated type, with 5,295 cases in that year. Why do murders happen in the U.S.? While most of the time the circumstances of murders in the U.S. remain unknown, homicides due to narcotics come in as the second most common circumstance – making them more common than, for example, gang killings. Despite these gruesome facts, the violent crime rate has fallen significantly since 1990, and the United States is much safer than it was in the 1980s and 1990s. Knife crime vs disease: Leading causes of death The death rate in the U.S. had hovered around the same level since 1990 until there was a large increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic in recent years. Heart disease, cancer, and accidents were the three leading causes of death in the country in 2022. The rate of death from heart disease is significantly higher than the homicide rate in the United States, at 167.2 deaths per 100,000 population compared to a 5.7 homicides per 100,000. Given just 1,562 murders were caused by knife crime, it is fair to say that heart disease is a far bigger killer in the U.S.

Firearms, knife- and sharp-instrument offences, offences involving a corrosive substance, hospital admissions for assault with sharp objects, fraud, offences flagged as domestic abuse-related, corruption, anti-social behaviour, perceptions, and non-notifiable incidents.

In 2024/25, there were around ****** knife offences recorded in England and Wales, compared with *******in the previous reporting year.

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Incident-based crime statistics (actual incidents, rate per 100,000 population, percentage change in rate, unfounded incidents, percent unfounded, total cleared, cleared by charge, cleared otherwise, persons charged, adults charged, youth charged / not charged), by detailed violations (violent, property, traffic, drugs, other Federal Statutes), police services in Manitoba, 1998 to 2024.

Knives or other sharp objects were involved in ** percent of homicides in England and Wales in 2023/24, the most of any method of killing. Homicides which involved hitting or kicking without a weapon made up **** percent of homicides, while shootings were identified as the method in *** percent of homicides. Overall, there were *** homicides in this reporting year, which was slightly lower than in the previous year, when there were ***, but noticeably higher than in 2014/15, when there were ***. Firearm homicides rare in England and Wales In 2023/24, there were *** knife homicides in England and Wales, compared with *** in 2021/22, which was the highest figure recently. By comparison, homicides which involved the use of a firearm were far less common, with just ** in the 2023/24 reporting year. Due to strict gun laws and low levels of ownership, the UK contrasts starkly with the United States, which has struggled with high levels of gun violence. Although some specialist police officers in England and Wales are licensed to carry firearms, the majority of police officers are unarmed. In 2023/24, for example, there were just ***** armed police, out of around ******* police officers. Overall knife crime on the rise Like many other types of crime, knife crime offences in the ***** started to decline at the start of the decade before creeping up again from 2014 onwards, reaching almost ****** in 2019/20. In London, where much of the media’s attention on knife crime is focused, there were ****** knife crime offences alone in 2019/20. Although this fell during subsequent reporting years, which were influenced by COVID-19 restrictions, it remains to be seen if the trend will continue. In 2023/24, the number of knife offences in the capital was higher than in any other year since 2019/20.

The publication describes trends in cautioning and sentencing, probation supervision and prison population for possession of a knife or offensive weapon in England and Wales. It provides early indications of trends and is planned as a temporary release to cover the life and impact of the Tackling Knives Action Programme, which was launched to focus resources on rapid, intensive work in 10 areas of England and Wales to tackle knife crime. Source agency: Justice Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Knife Crime

Knife and sharp instrument offences: Recorded crime by Police Force Area. Data4NR reference.

The data used in the MPS Crime Dashboard is available here MPS Crime Dashboard | Metropolitan Police, along with the related data definitions. Please note that datasets are updated monthly on the 6th of the month. Data runs until the end of the month prior. April 2025: The Metropolitan Police Service reviewed their recording of offences where a knife or sharp instrument has been used from April 2024 onwards. This has shown over counting for some crime types and under counting for others. These records have been corrected which has resulted in a small overall increase in crimes that have been enabled by the use or threat of a knife or sharp instrument and a small reduction in offences resulting in an injury. Data may therefore not match earlier publications. Previous years’ data has not been revised therefore corrected data is not directly comparable with previous years. The offences which are included within the Knife or sharp instrument collection are specified by the Home Office. They include robbery, homicide, assault, sexual offences and threats to kill where a knife or sharp instrument has been used to threaten or to cause injury . June 2024: The MPS monthly crime data-sets are now being extracted and compiled from the new CONNECT system within the MPS; these data-sets will have prefix M1045 added to the file name. The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has introduced CONNECT, a new crime recording system that consolidates several previous systems into one integrated platform. This change aims to streamline processes and enhance efficiency across the board. At the end of February 2024 the MPS started using CONNECT to record crime and investigation data. There is a difference in how Hate Crime and Domestic Abuse are recorded on CONNECT compared with the legacy crime recording system of CRIS and for this reason, Hate Crime and Domestic Abuse figures pre an post March are not comparable. BCU and Borough data in CONNECT are determined by the geographic location of the incident, rather than the borough managing the case, as was the case with legacy systems. This new approach has been retroactively applied to legacy data to provide consistent and comparable analysis. NB The datasets include breakdowns by two geography types: 'Borough' and 'Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT)', as indicated in the 'Area Type' column. Double counting may result if you do not account for this is when using the datasets. Total Notifiable Offence (TNO) data follows the Home Office counting rules for recorded crime (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/counting-rules-for-recorded-crime ). NB This data-set includes “Other Accepted Crime”, which are non-notifiable crimes and must be excluded if calculating a TNO total. The “Other Crime” offence data follows the Home Office counting rules but have been grouped by specific features (e.g. Knife Crime): please see dashboard for definitions. NB "Hate Crime" totals do NOT include records that are flagged solely as 'domestic abuse'. Measures include Offences, Positive Outcomes, and the Positive Outcome Rate (total number of positive outcomes divided by the total number of offences in a given period). Knife Crime Offences {date-set produced from September 2025} From September 2025, all Knife Crime data will align with the Home Office NDQIS process for checking knife crime data quality. From that point, new ‘Knife Crime’ data sets will be refreshed and uploaded on/by the 18th of the month. All data is broken down by financial year for each crime type.

There were ******* violent crime offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police Forces in London in 2024/25, a decrease when compared with the previous reporting year. From a low of ******* violent crimes in 2015/16, violent crime has increased almost every year. This reflects a pattern of increasing violent crime replicated across England and Wales as a whole, with a peak of *** million offences reported in 2022/23. Overall offences also rising The overall crime figures for London also show a trend of increasing crime in the UK capital. In 2015/16 for example, there were ******* crimes recorded in London, compared to ******* in 2024/25. This follows a similar pattern seen in England and Wales, which has witnessed an uptick in crime after reaching historic lows in the mid-2010s. In 2013/14 for example, there were approximately ** crimes per 100,000 people in England and Wales, compared with *****in 2024/25. By contrast, in Scotland, and in Northern Ireland, crimes rates have remained broadly similar to the mid-2010s. Police budgets rising again Due to the austerity policies enacted by UK governments in the 2010s, the amount the UK government spent on the police was effectively frozen between 2013/14 and 2016/17. This policy has since been reversed, with the overall UK police budget reaching **** billion pounds in 2024/25, compared with 16.4 billion in 2016/17. The amount budgeted for the Metropolitan Police by the Mayor of London for 2025/26 was **** billion British pounds, a significant increase on the **** billion budgeted in 2018/19, but slightly lower than in 2024/25.