[holding answer 16 April 2007]: Information on arrests for recorded crime offences under s139 and 139A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (as amended by s4(1) of the Offensive Weapons Act 1996) and s1 of the Prevention of Crime Act 1953 (as amended by s2(1) of the Offensive Weapons Act 1996) are not separately identifiable within the arrests collection held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform. The collection is based on persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences) by main offence group (i.e. violence against the person, robbery, burglary, criminal damage etc) only.
Information on the number of persons found guilty for the offences requested in England and Wales for the years 2001-05 is provided in the following table, broken down by age group.
Age group Offence description Statute Year Aged 10 to 11 Aged 12 to 14 Aged 15 to 17 Aged 18 and over All ages 811 Possession of offensive weapons without lawful authority or reasonable excuse Prevention of Crime Act 1953, Sec 1(1) as amended by Offensive Weapons Act 1996, Sec 2(1 ) 2001 4 136 976 3,765 4,881 2002 5 113 953 4,398 5,469 2003 4 135 832 4,432 5,403 2004 — 134 1,047 4,576 5,757 2005 4 124 999 4,601 5,728 826 Having an article with blade or point in public place Criminal Justice Act 1988, Sec 139 as amended by Offensive Weapons Act 1996, Sec 3 2001 5 128 806 3,360 4,299 2002 2 134 812 4,333 5,281 2003 8 147 755 4,398 5,308 2004 5 170 817 4,792 5,784 2005 7 186 888 4,880 5,961 827 Having an article with blade or point on school premises Criminal Justice Act 1988, Sec 139A (1)(5)(a) as amended by Offensive Weapons Act 1996, Sec 4(1) 2001 — 2 6 15 23 2002 — 6 10 3 19 2003 2 6 7 14 29 2004 — 11 16 10 37 2005 1 14 17 12 44 1 These data are on the principal offence basis. 2 Data for "having an article with blade or point on school premises" excludes convictions for West Mercia PFA until clarification of these cases is obtained. 3 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by police forces and courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.