London Homicides Drop to Lowest Rate Since 1997

Is London a success story with record-low homicides, or do the statistics reveal a persistent violence crisis?

Published 23 hours ago

London Homicides Drop to Lowest Rate Since 1997

story

Above: A photo of a Met Police van parked in Morden, on Jan. 5. Image credit: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

The Spin

Left narrative

London has achieved its lowest homicide rate per capita on record at 1.1 per 100,000, outperforming major cities like New York, Berlin and Paris through record investment in policing and pioneering prevention work. The Violence Reduction Unit has delivered 550,000 interventions to stop young people joining gangs, while police have removed 3,750 weapons from streets and dismantled 1,500 county lines operations. Those spreading dystopian narratives about crime waves couldn't be more wrong.

Guardian

Sadiq Khan on X

Right narrative

Celebrating falling homicide numbers ignores that London remains an international outlier on knife crime, recording 180 offences per 100,000 residents, the highest rate in England and Wales. The number of Black homicide victims have only fallen by a quarter in 20 years while rates of white victims dropped by two-thirds, and since 2019 more than one in ten London homicide victims has been a teenage black boy. Low homicide rates don't equal low everyday violence when knife-enabled street crime defines the city's safety landscape.

Financial Times The Londoner