Possession of weapon offences have reduced in Dorset but the area’s Police and Crime Commissioner says “more needs to be done”.

David Sidwick was speaking after data from the Office for National Statistics revealed the number of ‘possession of weapons’ offences had fallen from 357 in the year ending June 2020 to 330 in the year ending June 2022.

Mr Sidwick said he would welcome the introduction of a specific “Violence Reduction Unit” within the force. 

He said: “We are a very safe county: we’ve gone up from ninth safest to sixth but, of course, I want us to be the safest. When we come to the issue of people carrying knives the problem we’ve got is there is an incredible link between county lines and drug dealing and particularly youngsters carrying weapons. They are encouraged to do so by the evil people getting them involved in the first place.”

“The problem we have is that you have one person carrying a knife as a threat and that actually predicates other kids carrying knives, in their heads, for defence. It’s that cycle we need to break.”

He added that “the root cause” for a majority of weapon-based offences was ‘things like drug dealing’ and that the introduction of a ten year drug strategy would hopefully reduce these offences.

Mr Sidwick said: “If you go back to the root cause we have a new Combating Drugs Partnership - this is the implementation of a ‘from harm to hope’ ten year drug strategy at a local level.

"There is a prevention workstream that looks at how to drive out drugs and, by iteration, that will help drive out the knife carrying. If you can get rid of the root cause why would you need to carry a knife?”

The Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner, who recently called for cannabis to be reclassified as a Class A drug said he would welcome the introduction of a specialist violence reduction unit in the force.

He said: “I would really, really want a Violence Reduction Unit in Dorset (Police) - it’s a whole system, multi-agency approach with evidence based interventions to reduce crime. There’s 18 of these around the country and not only do they reduce violence but it delivers a cost saving. 

“I would very much like a (unit) in Dorset not because we have a huge knife crime issue but because I don’t want us to have a huge knife crime issue. This is about prevention.”