After a spate of recent stabbings, is knife crime getting worse in Australia?

A string of high-profile stabbing incidents in Australia, including this year’s Bondi Junction attacks, the Wakeley attack on Bishop Mari Emmanuel and last year’s stabbing murder of New South Wales paramedic Steven Tougher, have prompted fears that knife crime is growing out of control.

But is that true? What’s the history of knife crime in Australia? And how does knife crime here compare with other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada?

Crime trends in Australia

Overall, crime across Australia has been declining since 2009.

Over the same period, homicide rates have remained relatively stable.

Other crimes in which knives are commonly used, such as attempted murders and armed robberies, have fallen since 2004.

However, knives were the most common weapon used in homicides in Australia from 2010 to 2023.

So even though official police statistics show knife crime is not getting worse across Australia, the fact knives have been used in some high-profile murder cases could partly explain the growing concerns.

What sort of knives are being used?

As there are different types of firearms, so too are there different types of knives.

Knives are also known by police as bladed or sharp implements, a term that also includes axes, tomahawks, machetes, “zombie knives”, bayonets, swords and even syringes.

Comparisons with the UK and Canada

Unlike in Australia, knife crime in both the UK and Canada has been rising.

The UK was rocked in late July this year when three young girls were stabbed to death, and others seriously injured, at a dance class in Southport.

Shortly afterwards, an 11-year-old Australian girl survived a knife attack in broad daylight in London’s busy Leicester Square.

There are four reasons why there has been an increased focus on knife crime in the UK in recent years.

First, in London, knife crime rose by 18% from 2022 to 2023.

Second, crime in England and Wales generally increased from roughly 4 million offences in 2012 to 6.65 million in 2023–24.

Corresponding with these two factors was the removal of approximately 20,000 police officers between 2011 and 2019, although this trend has been reversed somewhat in recent years.

Finally, and unsurprisingly, the strict gun laws in the UK ensures guns are rarely used in homicides compared with knives.

Canada has seen a general crime increase of 10% since 2020. But knife stabbing deaths have increased dramatically over the past decade – up 72.5% from 2012 to 2022.

Despite the increase in knife deaths in Canada, its parliament has not introduced specific legislation around knife crime, unlike in the UK.

However, police numbers in Canada have remained stable in the past ten years.

One possible explanation for the increase in knife crime in Canada is a combination of a lack of specific knife legislation and stagnant policing numbers – the police may be unable to keep pace or focus on knife crime, unlike in the UK.

Knife crime isn’t new

In 1669, King Louis XIV of France saw the connection between pointed domestic knives on his dining table and violence. He was so concerned that he passed a law demanding the tips of all table and street knives be ground smooth.

This is why we have rounded dinner knives today.

A century ago in Australia, knife crime came to public attention with a hybrid slang term called “Razorhurst”, when those living in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst demanded politicians deal with violent crime. Criminal gangs in the 1920s were regularly using cutthroat razors to slash the faces of their victims.

What reinforced the popularity of cutthroat razors, as opposed to guns, was introduction of the NSW 1927 Pistol Licensing Act.

This legislation was introduced to specifically discourage men who had become familiar using firearms in the first world war from using guns after returning home to Australia.

This law only led to the entrenched use of cutthroat razors, morphing into the use of knives instead of firearms.

How laws have changed in recent decades

In modern times in Australia, knife laws changed significantly after the stabbing murder of NSW police officer David Carty in 1997.

Some of these changes included the banning of “credit card knives” and knives disguised as non-weapons, while it became illegal to sell knives to people under 18. It also became illegal to carry a pocket knife in public unless it was for a specific, lawful purpose.

The death of Jack Beasley in Queensland in 2019 resulted in the “Jack’s Law” legislation. And in the past year, most Australian state and territory governments have introduced new laws to address and prevent knife crime.

There have also been calls to allow police widespread use of electronic, handheld metal detectors to check if anyone is carrying a knife, as has happened recently in NSW.

The reality of knife crimes in Australia

So if knife crime has not risen as sharply as it has in places like UK or Canada, what gives the impression that Australia is suffering an epidemic of knife crime?

The recent string of high-profile incidents has generated widespread public concern, which in turn has prompted calls by politicians to get tough on knife crime. This can be an easy political win.

Given every kitchen and garage in Australia possess more than one knife or bladed implement, the reality of removing these is not an option.

But the fear of knife crime is greater than the reality of us becoming victims to it.