Knife crime has reduced by eight per cent across Nottinghamshire, according to the latest national statistics. Our continued success bucks the national and regional trend – with the national average increasing by seven per cent and the East Midlands average rising by 16 per cent in the year to September 2019.
The reduction in knife crime is also set to continue in Nottinghamshire, with the force’s own even more up-to-date figures revealing a 7.6% drop across the whole of 2019 compared to 2018.
It follows heavy investment in proactive enforcement and prevention work to stop people carrying weapons and has been augmented by the efforts of all local partners.
This includes an uplift in front line officers, over a 100% increase in stop and search activity and the continued work of the Force’s dedicated Knife Crime Team and Robbery Team, who are focussed on tackling weapon-enabled crimes.
Schools and Early Intervention Officers have also been working hard in secondary schools across Nottinghamshire to drive home the prevention message over the last two academic years and further PCC investment has gone into launching the Dare 25 programme in primary schools, which includes bespoke education on knife crime. Today’s figures, from the Office for National Statistics, showed there were a total of 810 offences in Nottinghamshire in the year to September 2019, compared to 882 in the same period the previous year. Nottinghamshire Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford said:
“These statistics continue to demonstrate just how much collective effort is being undertaken here in Nottinghamshire. “Both the Police and Crime Commissioner and I continue to invest heavily in prevention across our city and county which is fundamental. Our targeted and highly successful stop searches are up considerably, we are taking more weapons off the streets, we are charging more people than ever before and our recorded levels of knife crime have continued to reduce despite the increases we seen in our surrounding forces and nationally.
“We have a comprehensive strategy, a solid level of partnership participation and we are absolutely committed to driving down knife crime and serious violence wherever it presents. “The exceptional level of convictions is very pleasing and is testament to the hard investigative work undertaken by our Police Officers on a daily basis to help keep the public safe. “Despite our historic funding challenges we have continued to increase the number of Police Officers and we will achieve our national 107 ‘Uplift’ by March, well ahead of most other forces. I’ve already offered the Uplift Team that we can recruit even more than this number subject to them releasing further monies.
“We’ve successfully embedded Schools Officers, a knife crime team, a robbery team and we’ve got an ambitious violence reduction unit which all contribute to this early success. “We can’t do this on our own and I would like to thank and encourage the public to continue to provide ourselves or Crimestoppers with any information about people carrying knives.” Paddy Tipping, Nottinghamshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, said:
“We are clearly making progress, but there is a way to go yet. I know that the police are working hard to tackle knife crime and the decrease in Nottinghamshire is welcome news.
We have invested in more officers, with more to come, we have our specialised teams tackling knife crime and robbery, and much more and it’s good to see such a positive result.
“But we must also change mindsets and habits, which is why the work with our partners is so important. The investment in early intervention officers in schools and working with parents is helping to turn younger people away from violence before they start. That will make our communities safer in the future.
“I’m also confident that we will start to feel the benefits of the Violence Reduction Unit’s innovative work in the coming months.”