Knife crime: assault data can help forecast fatal stabbings

Police at a crime scene in Leyton, east London after a man in his twenties was stabbed to death in March of this year. Credit: PA. Police at a crime scene in Leyton, east London after a man in his twenties was stabbed to death in March of this year. Credit: PA. Knife crime data from a 12-month period could be used to help forecast the London neighbourhoods most likely to suffer a fatal stabbing the following year, according to latest research. Cambridge criminologists worked with a Metropolitan Police detective to show that the number of assaults resulting in knife injuries over one year correlated with an increased risk of deadly knife crime in the same small areas the next year. DCI John Massey from the Met's Homicide Command manually trawled through thousands of knife crime records to pick out and “geo-code” incidents where people were stabbed and cut but survived during the 2016/17 financial year.