Hopes that innovative design will tackle knife crime

A cutlery company recently designed knives with rounded tips in response to rising knife crime.

New figures show the number of convicted knife offenses hit a 10-year-high in 2019, with 22,286 knife and offensive weapon offences formally dealt with by the criminal justice system in England and Wales last year, according to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics.

This is a three per cent rise on the previous year and the highest since September 2009 (26,364).The figures follow Tuesday’s announcement that the Prime Minister ordered all Whitehall departments to take action on tackling crime.Seen as a ‘bid to tackle knife crime’ by the Independent, the British cutlery and kitchenware firm Viners created the “Assure collection” which was created “in response to rising knife crime statistics and new government legislation.”

Alex Stevens, professor of criminal justice at the University of Kent, said: “Knives with rounded tips are not the entire solution to the knife crime problem. Fights will still occur but the deaths associated with knives are because of the penetration through the skin and the depth which they go.

“And a knife with a rounded tip is much less likely to penetrate the skin and go deep. So fights that occur with rounded knives are less likely to be fatal than normal kitchen knives.”

This comes after the UK government took the decision to reclassify kitchen knives as offensive weapons with the new Offensive Weapon Act 2019, forcing retailers to remove single knives from sale in retail stores, a press release for the knife collection stated.

“There is no particular reason of why we need points on our kitchen knives, so moving towards kitchen knives which don’t have pointed tips would create a much safer environment,” Alex Stevens added.

“Obviously, that company has an incentive to get people to buy new knives, but if it were the case that people have less access to pointed knives around the home when fights occur then that would be safer.”

The “assure collection” knives will be available on Viner’s website from February. One set of four knives is worth £14,50, and single knives cost either £3.99 or £ 5.99

The company Viners didn’t get back on the matter.