Operation Sceptre: Knife crime crackdown returns to South Yorkshire

Operation Sceptre, a nationwide effort to tackle knife-related criminality, will return to South Yorkshire on Tuesday and high visibility policing operations will be taking place across Rotherham.

Det Supt Una Jennings said the first operation, earlier this year, removed more than 300 weapons from the streets and engaged with more than 500,000 people in a week.

“We’re offering our wholehearted support once more to this initiative, which coincides with our recent launch of our force-wide knife crime strategy and our ongoing ‘Drop the Knife’ campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of carrying knives,” she said.

“We recognise and accept that there has been a rise in violent crime across the UK and South Yorkshire is no exception.”

Det Supt Jennings added: “We are working relentlessly alongside our partners in health, local authorities and other agencies to better understand the root causes of knife-enabled crime and as part of our activity next week we’ll have officers delivering hard-hitting presentations at schools to our young people, to warn them about the significant and often life-changing consequences of carrying knives,” she said.

“It is encouraging to learn that since we introduced our public health approach towards knife-enabled crime in July last year, we have seen the first decreases in this type of criminality in over four years.

“There remains much to do, however, and we can’t do this alone. I’d urge our communities to really get behind next week’s initiative and support police and other agencies in our efforts to reduce knife crime and keep people safe.”