Knife Crime Best Practice Guidelines
Knife-enabled crime continues to cause serious harm to victims and creates fear in our communities. The consequences for all those involved or touched by this type of crime are enormous. These guidelines seek to build on the work already done and reinforce the importance of partnership working in the prevention of crime. At the core of the approaches recommended is the need for our work to be intelligence driven. This joint guidance has been produced to enable forces to access the best practice available and help formulate strategies to reduce knife-enabled crime, thus making neighbourhoods and communities safer. This national knife crime good practice guide has been developed out of lessons learned from the national knife amnesty and the experience of many practitioners. Thank you to all who have contributed to this piece of work.
Title: Knife Crime Best Practice Guidelines
Editor: ACPO
Number of pages: 33
Date published: June 2007
Availability: Download full report 
PDF 313Kb
Recent months have seen a considerable number of high profile murders involving young people. In many of these cases, the murder weapon was a knife. This guide is therefore a timely contribution to the violent crime agenda and the need to divert young people away from harm.
Perhaps surprisingly, the available data indicates that the proportion of violent offences involving the use of a knife has remained relatively stable in recent years. This fact is contrary to public perception that knife crime is rising. There may also be an element of under-reporting. The public need to be reassured that police services in the UK and the Home Office are working together with other appropriate agencies to make communities feel and be safer.
An area of particular concern is the use of knives within the context of domestic violence. Focusing on this issue is an essential part of violence reduction and demonstrates that knife-enabled crime (KEC) is not committed solely by young people. Whilst many of our approaches deal with preventable youth crime, there are considerable opportunities across the whole spectrum of violence.
This guide builds on what is already known and suggests various tactics and initiatives to reduce KEC as well as providing an agreed way forward to build that more complete picture to better inform future action and strategy.
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Last update: Tuesday, July 31, 2007