Policing Minister Chris Philp has said that the Home Office is testing out new scanning technology that can detect if people walking down streets are carrying knives.
He also announced that new regulations are being introduced in Parliament today to tighten laws on knife crime.
Philp told GB News: “We’re going to do even more…using those powers like stop and search to get knives off the street, to stop people who are suspected of carrying, the police should be using those powers confidently to take knives off the streets.
“We’re also investing, in the Home Office, in some new technology. It’s not ready for deployment yet but I’m hoping in about a year it will be that will enable people to be scanned for knives as they walk down high streets to take more knives off the street.”
In a discussion with Ellie Costello and Stephen Dixon, he added: “We’re investing obviously in things like youth services, where we’ve taken 120,000 Knives off the street through initiatives like stop and search, which we fully support.
“By contrast, Labour mayors like Sadiq Khan are not using those powers as fully as they should.
“So, a combination of tough enforcement, record police numbers using powers like stop and search, but also diverting young people into other activities to get them onto a better track – all of those things together have reduced serious violent crime by 52% since 2010, but we want to go further and get it down even more.”
He added: “A combination of those measures will continue to get knife crime down. The number of young people admitted to hospital with a knife wound, which is the best measure…that’s down by 25% over the last four years. So it is working. The plan is working.”
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