Knife crime in schools (FOI ref: 424/26)

Request

Under the FOI Act, please provide me with the following information on knife crime in schools. Please do not refer me to previous similar data sets, as I'm looking for the exact data requested.

Q1: For the years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 and 2025 the number of offences involving a knife committed at schools?

Q2: For the years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 and 2025 the number of offences involving a knife at school broken down by offence subgroup as per the Home Office counting rules?

Q3: For the years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 and 2025 the number of suspects for offences involving a knife committed at schools broken down by age and sex of the suspect?

Q4: For the years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 and 2025 the number of offences involving a knife committed at schools broken down by how the suspect knows the victim?

Q5: For the years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 and 2025 the number of suspects for offences involving a knife committed at schools broken down by age and sex of the victim?

Response

Please find our response attached (424_26_attachment.pdf) and note – due to system changes/issues we are currently unable to provide data prior to 2022.

"An abundance of funding and dedicated resources continue to be ploughed into reducing knife crime which remains a top priority for WMP. For many years WMP has seen some of the highest knife crime offences per 1,000 population. That has now changed, we no longer occupy that unenviable position as we continue to see sustained reductions. That’s down to some very intense work with our local partners and the support of the public.

"The latest statistics serve to evidence the improvements people are seeing in their community. While recognising that any offence is one too many, people in the West Midlands are statistically now less likely to be a victim of crime.

"It's essential that we all come together — police, schools, teachers, and parents — to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our young people."

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that this data has been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request may be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting the data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of data which has relevance to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.