Offensive Weapons Act 2019

Policy background

2. Serious violence consists of knife crime, gun crime, homicide and robbery, in addition to other offences such as acid attacks and county lines drug dealing. After falling for a decade, homicide, knife crime and gun crime rose from year ending March 2014 to year ending March 2019, homicide by 27%, knife crime by 85%, and gun crime by 42% (note that part of the knife crime and gun crime increase was due to recording improvements). Robbery has risen by 80% from year ending March 2015 to year ending March 2019. These trends have stabilized from 2018/19, with the exception of knife crime which continued to rise prior to the pandemic. This is likely to be related to the continuing improvements in recording of knife crime, with NHS hospital admissions for assault with a sharp object having stabilized and started declining prior to the pandemic.
3. The pandemic has placed further downward pressure on serious violence, in particular knife crime. The latest police recorded crime figures, published by ONS 1 in May 2021 for the year ending December 2020, show that there was a 9% decrease in offences involving knives or sharp instruments recorded by the police in the year ending December 2020 (to 46,015 offences) compared with the previous year. The last annual decrease seen in offences involving knives or sharp instruments recorded by the police was in the year ending March 2014.
4. As part of the development of this Act, the Government publicly consulted on a number of legislative proposals which now form a large part of the Act. The consultation, which closed on 9 December 2017, received over 10,500 responses and a summary of the responses received has been published at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/offensive-and-dangerous-weapons-new-legislation.
5. The Act forms one of the commitments within the Government’s Serious Violence Strategy 2 , published on 9 April 2018. The Strategy is taking action to address serious violence and in particular the increases in knife crime, gun crime and homicide.
6. The use of acid and other corrosives as a weapon is of significant concern given the life changing injuries that these substances can cause. The latest police recorded crime figures, published by ONS 3 on 17 July 2020, for the year ending March 2020, shows that there were 619 violence against the person and robbery offences involving corrosive substances (excluding Greater Manchester Police). It had been previously estimated from a National Police Chiefs Council voluntary data collection covering the period October to December 2017, that there were around 800 corrosive attacks per annum in England and Wales. All 43 police forces in England and Wales and British Transport Police provided returns for the voluntary collection.
7. There is already in place a set of voluntary commitments 4 amongst retailers on the sale of corrosive products under which retailers agree not to sell products to those under 18 that contain potentially harmful levels of acid or corrosive substances - including applying Challenge 21/25 policies when asking for age identification, staff supported by till alerts, supervision and inclusion of these products in age restricted sales training. Under the voluntary commitments, retailers also agree that equivalent age restriction measures are applied to products sold online. In the case of certain corrosive substances retailers are required to comply with the Poisons Act 1972 and promote awareness to staff and what this means for the sale of products which contain levels of acid and other corrosive substances which are either regulated or reportable under the 1972 Act.
8. The police have asked for a new court order which will help them to manage those at risk of knife crime in their communities. This Act introduces Knife Crime Prevention Orders (KCPOs) for that purpose. It will be possible for the courts to issue a KCPO to any person from age 12 upwards. The intention is that these new orders will be preventative in focus, rather than punitive, targeted at those who are identified as being at high risk of being drawn in to knife crime, to provide them with the help and support they need to turn away from serious violence and knives. KCPOs will allow the courts to place restrictions on individuals, such as curfews or geographical restrictions, as well as positive intervention requirements to help the individual to avoid serious violence. The orders are civil and being subject to a KCPO will not give the individual a criminal record. Breach of the KCPO will, however, be a criminal offence, reflecting the serious nature of knife crime. The maximum sentence will be 2 years in prison, although it will be open to the court to issue a lesser sentence, including a community sentence, depending on the seriousness of the breach and the circumstances of the case. KCPOs will be for a maximum duration of 2 years and must be reviewed by the courts after 12 months although should be reviewed more regularly for younger subjects.