Advanced Knife Crime Operations: Precision Targeting, Predictive Harm Identification, automation and POP‑Led Responses
This four day course is targeted at operational police leaders and analysts accountable for delivering their Force’s knife crime strategy.
The course will show delegates how their Force’s knife crime strategy can be optimised and its approach to Habitual Knife Carriers (HKCs) can be improved and automated, plus how this improvement can be measured and evidenced.
Four days residential or non residential.
Thursday 11th to Friday 14th August 2026 at Selwyn College Cambridge
This four-day course is designed for operational police leaders and lead analysts who are accountable for delivering their Force’s knife crime strategy.
The course will show delegates how to improve their Force’s knife crime strategy and its approach to Habitual Knife Carriers (HKCs), plus how the improvement can be measured and evidenced for governance purposes.
These outcomes will be achieved by highlighting how to:
(i) Improve targeting against the highest harm offenders or highest harm locations
(ii) Improve forecasting of future high harm offending (because all ADR 160 (Home Office Annual Data requirement) knife crimes are not equally harmful or equally predictive
(iii) Use the predictive factors of future knife crime offending that exist within your Force’s data you are currently not taking advantage of. These factors, which predict those who have not yet been identified as knife crime offenders but are already on an early trajectory, will enable earlier, less intrusive, and less costly deployment of finite partnership resources in a prevention and diversion framework.
(iv) How to integrate a Problem Oriented Policing Approach into knife crime strategies
(v) How to improve automation of scanning and forecasting by using the Forces existing i2 software.
(vi) How to measure, understand and report the performance of your Forces approach against the two principal quantitative measures; wasteful errors (targeting where not needed) and dangerous errors (not targeting where needed)
Day 1 of the course begins by setting out the key concepts of Evidence-Based Policing relevant to addressing knife crime including using the Cambridge Crime Harm Index to separate out higher harm and lower harm knife offences, options to map and visualise crime concentrations differently and an introduction to how Problem Oriented Policing (POP) can be used to focus on knife crime. Day 1 concludes with two case studies to illustrate the case for selective targeting selectively by place and how a POP approach can be embedded into a Hot Spots operation.
Day 2 begins with a critical analysis of two published approaches to identifying future knife crime offenders and uses the principles of Evidence-Based Policing to highlight the inherent limitations. We then set out how any approach can be incrementally improved and simultaneously how performance can be tracked, measured, and evidenced. The afternoon of day two focus on approaches to identify those who have not yet been identified as Habitual Knife Carriers (HKCs) but are on trajectories that will bring them there. For this cohort of future offenders, we show the evidence of the approaches that show promise. Day 2 concludes with a case study to illustrate how within a single category of violent crime it concentrates for different victim profiles and distinct types of offences differently by time and place. This is to reinforce the case for selective targeting and a Problem Oriented Policing approach which will be covered on day three.
Day 3 is a deep dive into the application of Criminal Networks Analysis to identify and predict future knife crime offenders before they have committed a ADR160 offence and those on an early trajectory to reach HKC status. The morning concludes with a presentation of UK knife crime research using a Criminal Network Analysis approach that will be published in May 2026. This will show the insight that is waiting to be accessed in every Force’s own dataset using existing technology. The afternoon is then a deep dive into the application of Problem Oriented Policing to knife crime. This includes two case studies on how the underlying causes have been identified (by place) that enables action to be taken to prevent crime returning, so that there is no ongoing requirement for high visibility prevention policing.
Day 4 begins with an extended masterclass in how to optimise the software that Forces are already paying for as part of a national agreement. This is delivered by the i2 technical and tradecraft specialist who is himself a former senior analyst in a UK Force. I2 will demonstrate how Forces can make best use of their existing analytical software (Analysts Notebook and iBase, that is already paid for), to trawl, link and prioritise data across different intelligence databases as well as how to automate the preparation of Habitual Knife Carrier indices. Day four concludes with a presentation from Professor Lawrence Sherman the former Metropolitan Police Service Chief Scientific Officer on the challenges and opportunities and quick wins in of adopting a more evidenced based approach to targeting knife crime.
Faculty
Professor Lawrence Sherman KNO (Wolfston Emeritus Professor of Criminology University of Cambridge, former Chief Scientific Officer Metropolitan Police Service)
Dr Eleanor Neyroud (CCEBP and University of Cambridge)
Professor Paolo Campana (Professor of Criminology and Director of the Violence Research Centre, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge)
Matt Sessions (Learning and Search Consultant,Lead for Problem-Oriented Policing & Problem Solving CCEBP)
Dr Simon Rose BSc., MSt., MBA, PhD (Det. Ch. Supt Retd. MPS) (CCEBP and University of Cambridge)
Seth Cooke (i2 Technical & Tradecraft Specialist)
Costs
Residential (inclusive of 4 nights bed & breakfast) = £1,810.00 + VAT
Non-Residential = £1,350 + VAT.