Rural knife crime rocketing

KNIFE crime is rising more rapidly in rural counties and market towns than in cities, a study has found.

- Jon Austin

Although most of the police forces in the top 10 included large inner city areas, the study found offences were soaring at an alarming rate outside of urban regions.

Gloucestershire and Wiltshire both saw increases of 23 per cent in the year from October 2022 to September 2023.

Rises in rural areas are believed to be partly fuelled by the spread of county lines networks, which export illegal drugs and the associated violence from cities.

The Cleveland Police force area had the second highest amount of knife crimes per population in the country, according to the research."

It had a rate of 17 incidents per 10,000 people, second only to the West Midlands, which includes Birmingham, which had 17.7.