Mahoney, Peter F.Godhania, K.Carr, Debra J.2017-03-292017-03-292017-01Mahoney PF, Godhania K, Carr DJ. (2018) Investigating the use of concealable and disguised knives. Police Journal, Volume 91, Issue 2, June 2018, pp. 139-149https://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X17694176http://dspace.lib.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826/11685Knife-carrying and knife crime is a significant issue in many countries. There are a number of knives available for purchase that are designed to be concealable, or that are disguised as everyday objects e.g. combs, pens and belts. In addition, an experienced knife-user will be able to conceal knives around their person. The aim of the work summarised in this paper was to study the concealment and deployment of a range of such weapons and to raise awareness of such threats to the blue-light community (police, ambulance, firefighters and other first responders); allow comment to be made on the effectiveness of various scenarios that a knife-carrier might use to carry and deploy a disguised or concealed knife; and measure the time to deployment of a disguised or concealed knife from different locations on an assailant’s body so that suitable defensive responses can be designed and assessed. High-speed video was used to assist in studying attack sequences and allowed assessment of the speed of attack; this typically varied from 0.5 seconds to 2.3 seconds.Article