NO CHILDREN went to prison for committing knife crimes in Dorset last year, new figures show.

Anti-knife crime charity the Ben Kinsella Trust said a fall across England and Wales is encouraging, following a trend in decreasing child knife crime, but warned against the high percentage of repeat offenders avoiding custody.

Ministry of Justice figures show 46 knife offences were committed by children aged between 10 and 17 in the Dorset Police area last year, down from 52 in 2020.

Of them, 42 were for possessing a knife in a public place and four were for threatening behaviour.

An offence can be classified as both possession and threatening, but it is only recorded once in the total number of offences.

But the offences led to no under-18s being placed in immediate custody.

This was down on one the year before and three in 2019, before the pandemic.

The fall in the percentage of young offenders going to prison is alongside a national fall in the total number of offences.

Patrick Green, chief executive of the Ben Kinsella Trust, said that it is good to see knife offences falling, but expressed caution, given the decrease in all crime during the pandemic due to successive lockdowns.

Mr Green also raised the problem of repeat offenders, highlighting the low proportion sent to prison.

In Dorset, 11 of the 46 knife offences in Dorset were committed by children who have had at least one previous offence, all of them avoided immediate custody.

The other 35 were committed by first-time offenders.

Mr Green said: “Many victims will be horrified to see that habitual knife carriers are more likely to be returned to the streets than to end up in prison.

"We cannot expect to make any meaningful headway in tackling knife crime until the justice system takes stronger action to put serial offenders behind bars."

A Government spokesperson said: "Those caught carrying a knife are more likely to be sent to jail, and for longer, than they were a decade ago.

"The 20,000 extra police officers we are recruiting will help to bring more criminals before the courts and our Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act will ensure the most serious and violent offenders spend longer behind bars."