50% increase in serious knife assaults over past six years

THERE has been a 50% jump in serious assaults involving knives over the past six years, according to new crime figures.

The number of knife murders doubled between 2003 and 2008, but the figure fell dramatically in 2008, from a peak of 32 in 2007.

Figures from the Central Statistics Office show there has been a rise in violent crime involving knives between 2003 and 2008.

But the overall figure and many of the individual offences have fluctuated over the years and some crimes, such as knife robberies from a person, have dropped.

“There’s an underlying problem of violence in our young people,” said Joan Dean of AdVIC, a advocate group for families of homicide victims.

“So many young people seem intent on using violence and the assault statistics back that up. Some see extreme violence as the solution. There’s no regard for human life.”

Ms Dean said the present concern over knives was not the main issue: “The weapon is almost irrelevant, although the accessibility of knives is important.

“The real worry is the cause of the violence.”

The CSO figures show that the number of serious assaults – assaults causing harm – jumped by nearly 50% between 2003 and 2008. The figure dropped between 2003 and 2005, before rising sharply since then.

The CSO figures show a steady rise in knife murders after 2003, reaching a high in 2007 (32), before dropping dramatically in 2008 (11).

The figure is likely to increase this year, with more than 13 fatal stabbings so far, most recently that of Sebastian Creane in Bray.

Apart from serious assaults, the only other violent knife offence which reached a high in 2008 was aggravated burglary (131).

Professor Ian O’Donnell, of the Institute of Criminology at UCD, said: “The problem with statistics like this is it’s hard to see the background trend. It’s a short period and there’s quite a bit of fluctuation in the offences.

“If you take murders, the number is higher in 2008 than 2003, but there has been a massive drop since 2007.

“At face value, that could be taken to indicate it’s no longer a serious problem, but, as we’ve seen recently, it would be misleading to say the problem is behind us,” Prof O’Donnell said.