Police recorded knife-enabled robbery offences, to August 2025

Product Description

The Home Office collects information on police recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument (knife-enabled crime) in England and Wales for selected offences, including knife-enabled robbery (KER). KER includes offences where a knife or sharp instrument has been used to injure a victim or used as a threat. This will include offences where the weapon may not have been seen but is believed to be present at the time of the offence by the victim or another witness.

KER accounted for 42% of these knife-enabled offences in the year ending June 2024, with 22,995 KER offences recorded (28% of all robberies recorded this year). This was a 10% rise compared with the year ending June 2023. As a result of this, the Home Secretary and Policing Minister launched a KER Taskforce, with the first meeting held in October 2024. The purpose of the Taskforce was to agree new operational police tactics to halt the rise in KER offence levels. The Taskforce was chaired by the Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention. It brought together chief constables in the 7 police force areas with the highest and/or rising levels of KER offences. These were: Metropolitan Police Service, Greater Manchester Police, West Midlands Police, West Yorkshire Police, South Yorkshire Police, Avon and Somerset Police, and British Transport Police (England and Wales only).

Collectively these forces accounted for 70% of KER in the year to June 2024. The Taskforce was also attended by mayors/police and crime commissioners (PCCs) in these 7 areas, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, College of Policing, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, as well as other Safer Streets Mission partners. The Taskforce agreed an ambition to halt the rise of KER in the Taskforce areas within 6 months, by March 2025, baselined to the year ending June 2024. The data in this release shows the progress made in this ambition.