There has been little research on United States homicide rates from a long-term perspective, primarily because there has been no consistent data series on a particular place preceding the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which began its first full year in 1931. To fill this research gap, this project created a data series on homicides per capita for New York City that spans two centuries. The goal was to create a site-specific, individual-based data series that could be used to examine major social shifts related to homicide, such as mass immigration, urban growth, war, demographic changes, and changes in laws. Data were also gathered on various other sites, particularly in England, to allow for comparisons on important issues, such as the post-World War II wave of violence. The basic approach to the data collection was to obtain the best possible estimate of annual counts and the most complete information on individual homicides. The annual count data (Parts 1 and 3) were derived from multiple sources, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reports and Supplementary Homicide Reports, as well as other official counts from the New York City Police Department and the City Inspector in the early 19th century. The data include a combined count of murder and manslaughter because charge bargaining often blurs this legal distinction. The individual-level data (Part 2) were drawn from coroners' indictments held by the New York City Municipal Archives, and from daily newspapers. Duplication was avoided by keeping a record for each victim. The estimation technique known as "capture-recapture" was used to estimate homicides not listed in either source. Part 1 variables include counts of New York City homicides, arrests, and convictions, as well as the homicide rate, race or ethnicity and gender of victims, type of weapon used, and source of data. Part 2 includes the date of the murder, the age, sex, and race of the offender and victim, and whether the case led to an arrest, trial, conviction, execution, or pardon. Part 3 contains annual homicide counts and rates for various comparison sites including Liverpool, London, Kent, Canada, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco.

The crime rate in the United Kingdom was highest in England and Wales in 2023/24, at **** crimes per 1,000 people, compared with Scotland which had ** crimes per 1,000 population and Northern Ireland, at **** crimes per 1,000 people. During this time period, the crime rate of England and Wales has usually been the highest in the UK, while Scotland's crime rate has declined the most, falling from **** crimes per 1,000 people in 2002/03, to just **** by 2021/22. Overall crime on the rise In 2022/23 there were approximately **** million crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, with this falling to **** million in 2023/24. Although crime declined quite significantly between 2002/03 and 2013/14, this trend has been reversed in subsequent years. While there are no easy explanations for the recent uptick in crime, it is possible that reduced government spending on the police service was at least partly to blame. In 2009/10 for example, government spending on the police stood at around **** billion pounds, with this cut to between ***** billion and ***** billion between 2012/13 and 2017/18. One of the most visible consequences of these cuts was a sharp reduction in the number of police officers in the UK. As recently as 2019, there were just ******* police officers in the UK, with this increasing to ******* by 2023. A creaking justice system During the period of austerity, the Ministry of Justice as a whole saw its budget sharply decline, from *** billion pounds in 2009/10, to just **** billion by 2015/16. Although there has been a reversal of the cuts to budgets and personnel in the justice system, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the depleted service hard in 2020. A backlog of cases grew rapidly, putting a strain on the ability of the justice system to process cases quickly. As of the first quarter of 2023, for example, it took on average *** days for a crown court case to go from offence to conclusion, compared with *** days in 2014. There is also the issue of overcrowding in prisons, with the number of prisoners in England and Wales dangerously close to operational capacity in recent months.

This is the full dataset that allows replication of the study.

The research involved combining data from four separate sources to create one large dataset. These sources were the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) (2014/15-2015/16), Understanding Society (2010-2015), the Index of Multiple Deprivation (2010) and the UK Census (2011). This provided us with a detailed picture of individuals, households and areas. The CSEW asks people about their experiences of crime and ASB, which captures incidents which are not reported to, or recorded by, the police/other agencies. Understanding Society is a longitudinal survey of households in the UK and we focused upon the ‘local neighbourhood’ data. The Index of Multiple Deprivation provides data on relative deprivation across various domains. The UK Census provides a comprehensive snapshot of population characteristics. The four datasets were linked at the Lower Super Output Area (LSOA). As a result, the data files are only accessible via the UK Data Service Secure Lab and are therefore not available to download.

In a climate of diminishing budgets, falling police officer numbers and a growing number of calls related to "public safety and welfare"(College of Policing, 2015) senior police officers have highlighted the need to manage crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) differently (Thornton, 2015; Habgood, 2015). Research conducted by HouseMark suggests that the cost of tackling ASB to UK social landlords alone was approximately £295 million in 2012/13 (Wickenden, 2014). With this in mind, the primary research focus was to establish: Who experiences or witnesses ASB and in what context? A number of police forces have received criticism for their lack of understanding in relation to the intensity of harm to communities and vulnerable individuals caused by ASB (HMIC, 2010). The study addresses this gap in knowledge by providing a more comprehensive understanding of ASB victims, harm and vulnerability. It draws on data from four sources: Understanding Society, the Crime Survey for England and Wales, the UK Census and the Index of Multiple Deprivation. Collectively, this dataset builds a comprehensive picture of the individuals, households and areas most likely to experience: high prevalence of ASB; a strong link between ASB and crime victimisation; severe impact of ASB victimisation on quality of life and daily routine; and high levels of dissatisfaction with response to ASB. The research constitutes the most comprehensive study of the relationship between victim and neighbourhood characteristics to date, including deprivation, community cohesion and trust. The research has real potential to inform policy and practice, including resource allocation (e.g. patrolling strategies), planning policy, victim assistance, the design of the built environment and wider interventions to address ASB. The ability to provide a more effective response to ASB is particularly important at a time when budgets are being drastically reduced.