More than 100 knives surrendered across district of Rochdale

Since the amnesty bins were introduced, officers have been able to recover almost double the number of bladed articles they were obtaining beforehand.

The Forever Amnesty gives members of the public the chance to dispose of a knife of any kind anonymously with no questions asked, by simply depositing it into the amnesty bin at their local police station. Those surrendering knives are not required to give any personal details and will not face prosecution for carrying them.

Recorded knife crime data for the district of Rochdale showed that figures dropped from 182 incidents between January and June 2024 to 143 from July to December 2024.

Officers are also carrying out more stop searches in the district, up to 1,265 between July and December compared to 1,114 between January and June 2024. More offensive weapons are also being found through these stop searches, up from 192 to 224 for the same time periods.

Across the district, a successful test purchasing operation was run last week to test whether knives are being sold to those under the age of 18 and to promote the ‘Challenge 25’ scheme to the stores.

Test purchasing is vital in ensuring the shops are playing their part to reduce and prevent knife crime across Greater Manchester.