Essex's knife problem to be tackled by education, police boss says

Detective Chief Inspector Ian Hughes has argued educating young people with harder hitting messages will be crucial in stamping out the issue.

According to ONS figures, knife crime in Essex has more than trebled in the past decade, with the number of sharp instrument offences jumping from 531 in the year from April 2011 to March 2012 to 1,642 in the year from April 2022 to March 2023.

Det Chief Insp Ian Hughes has now revealed Essex Police has been forced to change its approach to education on knife crime so it is more purposeful and engages young people more strongly on the issue.

The police chief also took issue with the ONS figures, arguing that the way in which knife crimes are recorded belied the suggestion that knife crime had in fact trebled.

He said: “The way we record crimes has changed.

Education – Det Chief Insp Ian Hughes said Essex Police is not going to arrest its way out of the county's knife crime problem (Image: Essex Police)

“Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have recorded the fact that an incident was knife enabled – society was very different back then.

"The availability of knives has increased and so has the methodology of how people have offended.”

The key to stamping out knife crime, Det Chief Insp Hughes added, is to educate young people in such a way that is more forceful and striking than it has been in previous years.

He explained: “Where policing and a lot of agency approaches have changed is there was a hesitation to be quite as up front about the problems being faced.

“Now, the messaging is very purposeful and very obvious – the information is very hard hitting to make sure it is heard and understood.

Crime – central Colchester is where 34 per cent of the city's crimes take place, according to data revealed earlier this year (Image: Daniel Rees, Newsquest)

“The message is that this is happening in Essex, and we are addressing it head on; it’s a whole system approach because we are not going to arrest out way out of this.”

An approach involving a greater use of data and analytics is also being embraced to knife crime can be tackled more effectively, Det Chief Insp Hughes said.

He said: “Previously, each individual incident would be investigated and put to one side; how that’s changed in recent years is by using data to find who is at high risk of offending so we can address their criminogenic needs.”