The Staffordshire Police, Fire & Rescue and Crime Commissioner’s Office has been awarded £435,585 to support targeted problem-solving activity and partnership work aimed at preventing knife crime and keeping communities safe.
The Home Office funding will enable Staffordshire Police and partners to build on existing work to identify and address the factors that contribute to knife crime in specific locations across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
Staffordshire Police, Fire & Rescue and Crime Commissioner, Ben Adams said: “Although knife crime accounts for less than 1% of all crime in Staffordshire, it has devastating impacts on individuals, communities and families. This funding will help us strengthen work already taking place between Staffordshire Police, local authorities and our wider partners to keep our communities safe.
“This is not just about enforcement. We know that the most effective way to prevent crime is for organisations to work together, share information, understand local concerns and address the root causes of violence. This funding will enable us to take a targeted, evidence-based approach, focusing resources where data and local insight show they can make the greatest difference.”
As part of national efforts to halve knife crime by 2034, activity will be delivered in specific areas across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent through a partnership-led problem-solving approach.
The funding will support the development of local problem-solving plans, informed by police data, partner intelligence and community feedback. These plans will identify the most appropriate responses for individual locations.
The approach builds on previous Home Office-funded activity delivered in Staffordshire over the last year, which helped support reductions in crime and increased engagement between police, businesses and local communities. The new funding will complement ongoing work already underway through local community safety partnerships and wider violence prevention programmes.
Chief Inspector Scott Gidman, from Staffordshire Police’s Problem Solving and Intervention Team, said: “We fully recognise that delivering lasting change in local communities cannot be achieved by police alone, and this is why initiatives like this are so important for local people and businesses.
“By adopting a similar multi-agency approach, we were able to work collectively with our partners to reduce overall crime by four per cent in targeted areas across Staffordshire last year, with notable reductions in serious violence and knife crime.
“We’ll be using a similar data-led approach with this new funding, allowing us to focus proactive efforts on targeted policing and partnership action in the areas that will benefit from it the most.”
The Commissioner’s Office and Staffordshire Police will continue to work closely with local partners to ensure communities are kept informed about activity taking place in their area and the outcomes being achieved.
For more information, visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-expands-crackdown-on-knife-crime