Dyfed-Powys Police have seen over 660 knives handed in as part of Operation Sceptre, an awareness and amnesty campaign around knife crime, which took place from March 11-17.
As part of this campaign, people have been encouraged to hand knives in to police stations, into amnesty bins where knives could be disposed of with no questions asked.
In Powys 137 blades were handed into police stations, including over 50 knives which were handed into Rhayader police station, according to a tweet from Radnorshire police force.
Commenting on this, Dyfed-Powys police said: “During this week, 661 knives have been taken off the streets, many of which were illegal items with concealed blades, which is a significant increase on the number of knives surrendered during the previous operation in September.
“We understand that this increase might cause concern in our communities, and we would like to assure that Dyfed-Powys remains a safe area to live and work.
“Our force has a lower rate of knife crime than the national average – in the year ending March 2018, there were 31 crimes involving knives per 100,000 of the population in Dyfed-Powys. Across Wales, this figure stands at 37, and nationally there were 69 knife crimes per 100,000 people during the same period.
“We attribute the higher number of knives surrendered during this amnesty to the increased awareness of knife crime nationally, and not to an increase in knife-related crime in Dyfed-Powys.”