Just over one in five offenders convicted of carrying a knife in Sussex was sent to prison in the year to the end of last September, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Of 353 punishments for knife crime in Sussex, 75 (21 per cent) of which were immediate jail sentences.
The proportion was lower than the year before when 25 per cent of knife offenders were sent to prison, while in 2019 – before the coronavirus pandemic – the figure was 26 per cent.
Nationally, 28 per cent of criminals received a prison sentence after being convicted of having a knife last year, down from 36 per cent in the year to September 2020.
And despite the introduction of “second strike” sentences in 2015 – with repeat offenders facing a sentence of at least six months – more than 5,000 had a history of similar offending.
Just over half of those were jailed, compared with 63 per cent the year before.
In Sussex, 110 people who had previous convictions were cautioned or convicted, including 26 with two convictions and 16 with three or more.
Of those, 40 were sent straight to prison, meaning that 70 repeat knife offenders were given non-custodial sentences or cautions.
Patrick Green, chief executive of the anti-knife crime charity the Ben Kinsella Trust, said that knife crime victims were being failed by the criminal justice system.
Mr Green said: “These figures show that the justice system allowed thousands of habitual knife carriers to avoid prison and walk out of court.
“The prospect of an offender being imprisoned for a knife crime offence is diminishing and the law is no longer providing a deterrent to serial knife carriers.”
The Ministry of Justice said that those caught carrying a knife were more likely to be sent to jail – and for longer – than they were a decade ago.
The average sentence for carrying a knife or threatening someone with a knife was about seven and a half years.
In England and Wales, 20,200 offences of having a knife or offensive weapon ended with a conviction or caution in the year to September 2021.
This was up 10 per cent on the previous year and the equivalent of 38 for every 100,000 people.
The rate in Sussex was 25 for every 100,000 people, down from 27 in 2019, before the pandemic started.
Sussex has one of the lowest rates of knife crime in the country, with only a handful of police forces recording fewer cases by population (cases per 100,000).
