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August 22, 2024 - 3:15pm
Britain has seen a number of high-profile stabbings in recent weeks, the most notable being the mass stabbing of children in Southport at the end of last month. Such incidents have given rise to the claim that we’re in the midst of a “knife crime epidemic”. Indeed, many posts making this claim have gone viral on X. But what does the data say?
One widely-circulated post refers to the “4th stabbing in the span of two weeks”. Another refers to “8 stabbings reported across the UK in 36 hours”. Yet another claims that stabbings “are a daily thing now”. While these claims sound alarming, Britain is a big country, so you’d expect a certain number of stabbings each week. The question is: has the number of stabbings in recent weeks been unusually large?
Official data isn’t yet available (it is always reported with a lag), so let’s take the most alarming of the claims mentioned above: “8 stabbings reported across the UK in 36 hours”. This corresponds to 5.3 in 24 hours, but we’ll round up to six. Is six stabbings in a single day unusual?
There are two key measures of the number of stabbings in Britain: the number of offences involving a knife or sharp instrument recorded by police, and the number of hospital admissions for assault with sharp objects. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
One disadvantage of police-recorded stabbings is that not every victim decides to inform the authorities. Another is that the figures do not distinguish actual stabbings from attempted stabbings. In the latest year for which data is available (the year ending March 2024), the police recorded 233 homicides involving a knife or sharp instrument, 401 attempted murders, and 22,167 cases of “assault with injury” or “assault with intent to cause serious harm”. But we aren’t told how many assaults were “with injury” versus “with intent”. Adding together the three figures equals 22,801, which provides an upper bound for the total number of stabbings.
A disadvantage of the hospital admissions measure is that it refers to patient episodes, rather than patients (an individual patient can be admitted to hospital more than once for the same injury). Another is that it excludes patients who turned up at A&E but were not subsequently admitted to hospital. In the year ending March 2024, there were 3,888 hospital admissions for assault with sharp objects. Although this figure double-counts some patients, it excludes others, and is substantially lower than the number of police-recorded stabbings. Hence the true number of stabbings is unlikely to be lower than 3,888.
To be conservative, let’s use this figure as our benchmark. Dividing by 365, to give a daily total, equals 10.7. Which means that in a typical day, we should expect 10–11 stabbings. Six in a single day is therefore not unusual.
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