What is involved in Knife Crime?
Knife crime could involve assaulting or stabbing someone, threatening them in order to steal something or to commit a sexual assault, or carrying a knife or a bladed or pointed object. The possession and use of knives or other bladed or pointed objects to threaten or harm someone covers a wide range of offences, from robbery to serious sexual offences and murder.
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Knife crime includes the ownership of a banned knife. There is a complete ban on the sale and possession of offensive weapons and certain knives, including:
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- Flick knives – where the blade is hidden inside the handle and shoots out when a button is pressed; these are also called switchblades or automatic knives
- Butterfly knives – where the blade is hidden inside a handle that splits in two around it, like wings, or the handles swing around the blade to open or close it
- Disguised knives – where the blade is hidden inside something, like a belt buckle or fake mobile phone
- Push daggers
- Gravity knives
- Airport or stealth knives
- Sword-sticks
- Samurai swords
- Knuckle-dusters
- Hand-claws
- Foot-claws
- Blowpipes or guns
- Kubotan (cylindrical container holding spikes)
- Shuriken (also known as death stars or throwing stars)
- Telescopic truncheons (automatically extending)
- Kusarigama (sickle attached to a rope, cord or wire)
- Kyoketsu-shoge (hook-knife attached to a rope, cord or wire)
- Kusari (weight attached to a rope, cord or wire)
- Straight, side handled or friction-lock truncheons