According to this: [https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/stabbing-deaths-by-country](https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/stabbing-deaths-by-country) the UK is ranked #183/187 for mortal stabbings per 100k deaths worldwide. The figure itself is 0.08 mortal stabbings/100k deaths, which is (to 2d.p. at least) the same as the other four countries at the bottom (Ghana, Tunisia, Oman, Monaco). For clarity, Iceland (lowest violent crime rate in the world) is #164. USA is #111. Yet, in England (including in the King’s Speech House of Commons discussion yesterday\[?\]) politicians talk as if there is some ‘knife-crime epidemic’ and it’s ‘on the rise’ (actual quotes). I live in England, and have my entire life. Naturally, I’ve never been stabbed, nor do I know anyone who’s been stabbed.
Is there tons of non-fatal stabbings/slashings that no-one talks about? I don’t understand how a country can have a ‘knife-crime epidemic’ whilst having the fifth lowest fatal stabbing rates globally.
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[This neat little map](https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/dvc653/index.html) courtesy of the ONS may help illuminate it for you, as you can see the amount of knife crime nationwide is basically “I guess it happened to somebody at some point.”
Then you get to London… and you see that it’s ~7x higher than the minimum. And that would certainly get worse in specific areas if the map provided more granular data. So a more accurate, or at least honest, description might be to say that we have rising issues with knife crime *in very specific areas*.
This topic was also a favourite refrain of the Tories with them making [push](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2012/10/schedule/26/enacted) after [push](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/zombie-knives-banned-in-england-and-wales) after [push](https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/62/2/378/6322945) to attempt to address it. Now whether they really saw it as a problem or were just using it as a “tough on crime” campaign point is a different question, but they certainly fed into the narrative of an epidemic which as you highlight isn’t exactly true.
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