This Stabby Isle
16th July 2024
The number of knife-related deaths in England and Wales in 2022 was the highest since records began 77 years ago. Since 2010, the number of knife offenses in this region has risen by 34 percent. But the capital has seen the largest annual increase of any area.
London has a serious problem with knives—almost 30 percent of the 50,000 knife-related offenses in England and Wales last year occurred there. The Metropolitan Police recorded 14,577 knife offenses in 2023—a 22 percent rise from the previous year.
The case of Daniel Anjorin is illustrative. In a quiet suburban neighborhood of northeast London, the 14-year-old schoolboy was attacked by a man with a machete and fatally stabbed at the end of April this year. In Redbridge, the borough in which Anjorin was killed, knife crime increased by 22 percent last year—its highest level since 2018.