South Yorkshire’s knife crime prevention policies have come under fresh scrutiny after Harvey Willgoose’s killer was sentenced to life in prison yesterday.

15-year-old Mohammed Umar Khan fatally stabbed the fellow schoolboy with a hunting knife at All Saints Catholic High School on 3 February.

South Yorkshire has had one of the highest knife crime rates in the country in recent years.

According to Get Licensed, 50,000 serious knife crimes were recorded in England from July 2023 to June 2024.

South Yorkshire had the third-highest rate of serious knife crime with 10.72 offences per 10,000 people.

It also ranked third for attempted murders, knife-related assaults, robberies, and homicides involving a knife.

Police figures also show more than 100 cases of children taking knives into South Yorkshire schools have been recorded over the past three years.

Multiple agencies and community organisations run programs to try to tackle the problem, particularly among young people.

Sheffield Youth Justice Service runs the ‘No Point’ programme.

This is aimed at helping young people understand the consequences of using knives and reducing the number of knives being carried around the city.

Learn Sheffield runs a course on Preventative Knife Crime Education that is shown in schools and colleges across the city.

South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Plan 2025-2029 said the force regularly refreshes their assessment of what we know about those places where knife crime and violence are more likely to take place, who is more likely to carry a knife and why.

On a national level, a bill to introduce a new offence of possessing a knife or offensive weapon with intent and give the police greater powers to seize knives from properties is currently progressing through Parliament.

The government also launched a Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime last year.

Just days before Harvey’s murder, South Yorkshire Police launched the Knives Take Lives campaign, which targeted boys aged 11 to 14 who ‘may be starting to feel pressure to carry a knife’.

This was after two young people were murdered after a night out in Doncaster in 2022.

But the results of these have been mixed.

In January, South Yorkshire Police deployed 9,000 hours of additional patrols in 2024 to areas identified as knife crime hotspots as part of a Home Office funded initiative.

This has led to 113 arrests and successful seizing of weapons.

But the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit also acknowledged the need to address underlying issues like poverty, adverse childhood experiences, and drug misuse, alongside direct interventions.