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Call for hospitals to help tackle knife crime

18/07/2008

Hospitals could help to reduce knife crime in the UK by collecting data on the violent assaults that they treat, a medical expert claimed today.

Professor Jonathan Shepherd, director of the Violence Research Group at Cardiff University, said if this data was shared with crime reduction agencies then it could help to target violence hotspots.

His comments, published on the British Medical Journal website, bmj.com, follow the publication of the British Crime Survey on Thursday which revealed that one in every five violent crimes committed in England and Wales during the last year involved a knife.

Professor Shepherd warned that many violent incidents that result in medical treatment are not reported to the police as "patients are afraid of reprisals, they are unable to identify assailants or they are unwilling to have their own conduct scrutanised".

As such he argues that "it is not safe to assume that the most serious violence will have been reported".

"Emergency departments can help by collecting anonymised data on the locations and times that violent events occur and the types of weapons used, and by sharing these data with crime reduction agencies," Professor Shepherd said.

"Clearly, unless violence hotspots are identified, they cannot be targeted."

He added that evaluation of partnership work over the past ten years shows that the 350 crime reduction partnerships to which the NHS, local authorities and police all contribute has confirmed that an integrated approach and data sharing significantly reduces violence compared with the police and local authorities working alone.