10:18pm Thursday 9th July 2009
By Anika Bourley
The number of people convicted for carrying knives in West Yorkshire has risen five-fold in ten years – faster than any other area.
In 1998 courts across the region convicted 38 people compared with 190 in 2007. The number of people being found guilty has risen year on year in the ten-year period with the biggest increase from 108 to 172 in 2003-04.
Nationally convictions rose by 62 per cent from 3,805 to 6,169 in the ten years.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, who obtained the figures from a parliamentary answer, said: “Knife crime blights our society.
"The figures are awful for the Government as they show yet again how Labour Ministers have failed to get knives off our streets.
“We have to create a real disincentive for people who carry knives, and the fact that the supposed tough sentences just aren’t happening sends out all the wrong messages.
"The Government also needs to stop wrapping up our police in unnecessary paperwork and get more officers back on to the streets.”
Ministers say crime and violent crime has fallen by a third in ten years but accepted more needed to be done to rid the streets of knives.
They said the increase in convictions for knife crime, reflected the Government’s tough response to violent crime – not a rise in crime itself.
A Home Office spokesman said: “We know that gun, gang and knife crime continues to devastate families, communities and neighbourhoods. That is why we remain fully committed to tackling gang culture, and gun and knife crime, through responsive policing, tough powers and funding for prevention projects.
“According to the British Crime Survey (BCS) the number of violent incidents has fallen by nearly half (48 per cent) since 1995.”
Earlier this year it was revealed Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Luke’s Hospital, collates data on knife crime cases but does not pass it on.
West Yorkshire is one of 12 knife crime hotspots being targeted by Government.
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