OSLO, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Oslo police district's official Twitter profile reported 44 cases involving knives in the first 55 days of 2019, newspaper Aftenposten reported on Monday.
Several of the cases are linked to criminal youth environments and the majority of the episodes took place in the evening or at night, the report said.
There were 11 cases of threats made with a knife and four episodes of knife stabbing.
The other incidents involve fights, robberies, attempted raids and carrying a knife in public places, Aftenposten wrote.
Since 2013, there has been an increase of 34.1 percent in the number of reported cases involving threats with knife.
The figure increased from 179 in 2013 to 240 last year, according to the Oslo police statistics for 2018.
"We see that knife use has increased. Knives are used to execute violence and to threaten. This is certainly not good," said police officer Hans Sverre Sjovold in the Oslo police district.
In the same period, the number of reported cases of young people between 10 and 22 threatening with a knife has almost doubled, from 40 to 78.
Knives are very easily accessible and there is reason for concern that younger people use a knife, especially related to youth crimes, Sjovold said.
Those who are taken with a knife are being arrested and police has considerably increased the fines and will request imprisonment whenever possible, he said.
Last year came the biggest increase in knife episodes happened between summer and Christmas.
The trend seems to have continued in 2019, according to police.
Last year, there was a record of 78 registered cases involving threats with a knife in the age group 10 to 22 years, the report said.
