Knife crime under 18 years (FOI Ref: 615:26)

FOI Request Reference: 615/26

Thank you for your request for information, received 5/3/2026.

Request

For the last five calendar years (2020–2024, or the most recent available), please provide:

Q1. The number of recorded knife-related offences within the West Midlands Police force area.

Q2. Of those offences, the number where the suspect was aged under 18.

Q3. If available, the number of cases where the victim was also aged under 18.

Please provide the figures broken down by year.

Response

Please find enclosed our response.

The number of records will not match the ages.  Not all ages have been recorded.  Please note also that some of the ages are as a result of historical offence reporting.

Q1. The number of recorded knife-related offences within the West Midlands Police force area.

Q2. Of those offences, the number where the suspect was aged under 18.

Q3. If available, the number of cases where the victim was also aged under 18.

Where the victim age is zero = the child is under the age of 1.

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.

Please note that this data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently, statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.  

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. Consequently, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are considered 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 considered 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.