LONDON

Around eight in 10 teenage homicides in England and Wales have involved a knife or sharp instrument, a far higher proportion than across the population as a whole, new figures revealed Thursday.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that there were 64 homicide victims aged 13 to 19 in the year ended March 2024, 53 or 83% of whom were killed by "a knife or sharp instrument."

In contrast, fewer than half, or 46% of all homicides in England and Wales in the same period involved a knife or similar sharp weapon.

The ONS figures came a few days after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death at a school in Sheffield.

Meanwhile, the proportion of all homicides involving a sharp instrument also reached a decade high, increasing from 42% in 2022-2023 to 46% in the 2023-2024 period, according to the ONS.

In general, there were 108 domestic homicides in the year ended March 2024, a similar number to the previous year (107) and of these, 83 were women and 25 were men.

It also noted that 66 of these victims were killed by a partner or ex-partner.

The report also noted that the homicide rate over the three-year period to the year ended March 2024 was 39.8 victims per million population for the Black ethnic group, more than four times higher than for the White ethnic group at 8.5 victims per million population.