New £26m mapping technology to be used in crack down on knife crime hotspots
The government has announced a major new initiative to tackle knife crime by distributing sensitive mapping data and a £26m fund to target persistent hotspots.
Ministers are now sharing national mapping technology with police forces so they can pinpoint specific streets and places where knife attacks are most common.
This initiative, led by the Home Office, is based on the understanding that the vast majority of knife crimes occur repeatedly in the same areas.
The newly established Knife Crime Concentration Fund, totaling £26 million, will directly support police operations in these identified high-risk areas.
This significant funding has been allocated to 27 police forces who collectively handle 90 per cent of all knife crime incidents in England and Wales.
Policing minister Sarah Jones said: “Knife crime is devastating lives and families across the country, and the majority of it happens on a small number of streets across the country.
“We will apply state-of-the-art mapping to identify these hotspots and target them with police patrols, live facial recognition and knife belts to catch these criminals.
“This Government will save lives and protect communities by halving knife crime within ten years.”
The mapping system will help officers identify knife crime hotspots of up to 100 square metres, and the times when these incidents are most likely to occur.
The areas will see increased police patrols, new CCTV cameras, live facial recognition and knife detection belts.
The crackdown comes as part of a wider program aimed at halving knife crime within a decade.
Ministers are also launching a new generation of youth centers as part of the Protecting Lives, Building Hope plan.
The eight centers will be located in Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, County Durham, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham and Tower Hamlets, all of which are areas with high knife crime.
They will be the first of 50 to eventually be rolled out across the UK.
