West Midlands knife crime figures rise by 100 in JUST one year
The number of people cautioned or sentenced over knife possession offences in the West Midlands rose by more than 100 in one year, new figures show.
Statistics have revealed there were 987 knife possession offences resulting in the warning or punishment between October and December last year.
This is up from 870 from the year before - but down from 1,890 in 2008.
The figures for England in and Wales overall also rose in one year with 17,361 people cautioned or sentenced after being caught in possession of a knife in 2015 compared to 16,261 in 2014.
Of these, 2,374 were cautioned, 686 fined, 4,425 received community sentences, 3,299 suspended prison sentences and 5,358 faced immediate custody.
There have been 3,000 knife crimes in Wolverhampton alone over the last 10 years, including a city centre brawl near the bus station and Britannia Hotel in April 2014 and the murder of factory worker Tom Kirwan, who was was knifed to death outside the Uberra Club in July 2012.
Another high profile instance of knife crime was the death of Christina Edkins, a 16 year old who was stabbed by paranoid schizophrenic Phillip Simeline, of Walsall, on a bus in Birmingham while on her way to Leasowes High School, Halesowen.
West Midlands Police launched a campaign to tackle the levels of recorded knife crime.
The campaign, called 'Either way he's not coming home', appeals to mothers of young men to have a conversation with their sons about the dangers of carrying a knife.
It stresses that anyone carrying a knife in public runs the risk of being jailed, seriously wounded, or potentially killed.
As part of the initiative, hard-hitting posters showing images of young men being arrested and taken away from his home, a knife crime victim in an ambulance and a mother at her son's funeral.
