Knife crime (FOI Ref: 1376/26)
Request
The number of arrests for Under 18s carrying an illegal knife/ bladed article in the past four calendar years (2022-2025) and up to June 2026.
Please break the figures down by calendar year.
Please break down the figures by age.
Please specify the youngest age to be arrested each year
Response
Please find enclosed our response.
|
Age At Arrest |
|||||||||
|
Year of Arrest |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
|
2022 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
17 |
51 |
69 |
104 |
106 |
87 |
|
2023 |
1 |
3 |
11 |
28 |
42 |
72 |
112 |
126 |
90 |
|
2024 |
2 |
5 |
12 |
32 |
50 |
102 |
132 |
134 |
96 |
|
2025 |
2 |
7 |
9 |
37 |
53 |
87 |
123 |
143 |
104 |
|
2026 |
0 |
0 |
6 |
8 |
26 |
31 |
50 |
50 |
37 |
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.
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 is no longer the case, and we continue to see sustained reductions due 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.