Overview
- Possessing, manufacturing, importing or selling ninja swords is now illegal under Ronan’s Law, with offenders facing up to six months in prison, rising to two years under the upcoming Crime and Policing Bill.
- A month-long amnesty in July led to the surrender of more than 1,000 bladed weapons via bins and mobile vans across England and Wales.
- Online retailers are required to report suspicious bulk knife orders to police and implement stricter age-verification checks, while tech executives face sanctions for failing to curb illegal sales.
- Targeted policing measures, including expanded stop-and-search operations and live facial recognition trials, have helped reduce knife-enabled robberies in seven high-risk areas from 14% to 6% of all robberies over the past year.
- Named after 16-year-old victim Ronan Kanda, these measures form part of a wider effort to address an 87% rise in knife crime in England and Wales over the last decade.