‘Most knife crime happens in residential settings’
A report from An Garda Síochána has found that most violent knife crimes take place in residential settings, not on streets or in open spaces.
The report, which covers a ten-year period from 2015 to 2024, finds that there has been a fall in robberies involving knives in some categories over the past five years, but a “slight increase” in assaults with knives.
The Minister for Justice has welcomed “several positive aspects” of but has expressed concern about the figures on knife crime in residential settings
Jim O’Callaghan said that he would raise this issue at a meeting with incoming Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly next week.
Robbery with a knife
The report finds that there was a 40% reduction in robbery with a knife in retail spaces over the five-year period 2020 to 2024 compared with 2015-2019.
In the same period, there was a 35% drop in robbery with a knife in streets or open spaces.
The garda report says that assaults causing harm that involved a knife accounted for just 5% of all such assaults in 2024. The equivalent figure for the full ten-year period was 7%.
It says that most assaults causing harm with a knife occur in residential locations, while most of the murder or manslaughter incidents involving knives also occur in residential locations.
‘Slight increase’ in assaults
The report says that there has been “a slight increase of less than one incident per month” of assaults causing harm with a knife in a street or open space over the five-year period to 2024.
It adds that the figure for assaults in a residential space rose by “fewer than three incidents per month” over the same period.
Fewer than two assaults per week causing harm with a knife occur in a street or open space across the country, the report states.
Seizures up 28%
The report shows that the number of knives seized by gardaí over the past five years was up 28% compared with the 2015-2019 period.
Gardaí say that the figures for knives seized in 2024, 2023, and 2022 were similar, at nearly 2,200 each year.
They add that the Dublin region generally accounts for between 40% and 50% of seizures.
Prosecutions
There were almost 20,000 prosecutions for possession of a knife or a flick-knife over the ten-year period – around 40 a week.
While prosecutions for possession of a knife were up 14% over the last five years compared with 2015-2019, prosecutions linked to flick-knives were down 8%.
Over the past ten years, 1,784 people were admitted to hospital after an assault by knife – around 15 a month, on average.
The maximum penalty for the offences of possession of a knife with the intention of unlawfully intimidating or injuring another person, trespassing with a knife, and producing a knife while committing or appearing to be about to commit an offence, increased from five years to seven years’ imprisonment from September 2024.
The maximum penalty for assault causing harm under section 3 of the was increased in 2023 from five to ten years’ imprisonment.