Knife or sharp instrument offences

Offences involving a knife or sharp instrument (knife-enabled crime) include offences where a knife or sharp instrument has been used to injure a victim, attempt to injure, or used as a threat. This includes offences where the weapon may not have been seen, but was believed to be present, at the time of the offence by the victim or another witness.

Knife-enabled crime recorded by the police decreased by 10% in year ending (YE) December 2025 (to 49,151 offences), compared with YE December 2024 (54,548 offences). Levels remained 11% lower than YE March 2020 (55,170 offences). Increases between YE March 2015 and YE March 2020 is partly because of improvements in police recording practices.

Most knife-enabled crimes were categorised as assault with injury and assault with intent to cause serious harm (44%) and robbery (40%) offences. Fewer than 1% of knife-enabled crimes were homicide offences (0.3%).
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