With approximately 122.1 crimes per 1,000 population, Cleveland, in North East England, had the highest crime rate of all the police force areas in England and Wales in 2024/25. High crime rates are evident in other areas of northern England, such as West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester at 114.5 and 108.2, respectively. In the UK capital, London, the crime rate was 105.5 per 1,000 people. The lowest crime rate in England was in the relatively rural areas of Wiltshire in South West England, as well as North Yorkshire. Overall crime in England and Wales The number of crimes in England and Wales reached approximately 6.74 million in 2022/23, falling slightly to 6.66 million in 2023/24, and 6.59 million in 2024/25. Overall crime has been rising steadily across England and Wales for almost a decade, even when adjusted for population rises. In 2022/23, for example, the crime rate in England and Wales was 93.6, the highest since 2006/07. When compared with the rest of the United Kingdom, England and Wales is something of an outlier, as crime rates for Scotland and Northern Ireland have not followed the same trajectory of rising crime. Additionally, there has been a sharp increase in violent crimes and sexual offences since the mid-2010s in England and Wales. While theft offences have generally been falling, the number of shoplifting offences reached a peak of 530,640 in 2024/25. Troubled justice system under pressure Alongside rising crime figures, many indicators also signal that the justice system is getting pushed to breaking point. The percentage of crimes that are solved in England and Wales was just 5.7 percent in 2023, with sexual offences having a clearance rate of just 3.6 percent. Crimes are also taking far longer than usual to pass through the justice system. In 2022, it took an average of 407 days for a crown court case to reach a conclusion from the time of the offence, compared with 233 days in 2018. This is most likely related to the large backlog of cases in crown courts, which reached over 67,750 in 2023. Furthermore, prisons in England and Wales are dangerously overcrowded, with the government even releasing some prisoners early to address the issue.

In 2024/25, there were 104 homicide offences recorded in London, the most of any region of the United Kingdom during that time period. North West England, which includes the large cities of Manchester and Liverpool, had 69 homicides and had the second-highest number of homicides. In the same reporting period, the constituent countries of Wales and Northern Ireland reported the fewest homicides, at 23, and 13 respectively. Homicides in the UK falling despite recent uptick Since 2002/03, all three jurisdictions of the UK; England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, have seen their homicide rates fall, with Scotland seeing the steepest decline. The most significant decline in homicides in this period occurred between 2002/03 and 2014/15, which saw the annual number of homicides in England and Wales half from over 1,000 to around 500. This trend was suddenly reversed from 2015/16 onwards, with homicides rising to around 700 per year between 2016/17 and 2019/20. While homicides fell back to 535 in 2024/25, it remains to be seen if this pattern will continue. Knives used in almost half of all murders In 2024/25 a knife or other sharp instruments were used in approximately 46 percent of all murders in England and Wales, making this, by far, the most common method of killing in that reporting year. The overall number of knife homicides reached 262 in 2023/24, compared with 243 in the previous year. Firearm homicides were much rarer than knife homicides, with only 22 taking place in the same reporting year, and homicides caused by shooting only accounting for 3.9 percent of homicides overall.

Numbers of recorded offences, and rates of offences per thousand population, by broad crime grouping, by financial year and borough.

Rate is given as per thousand population, and are calculated using mid-year population from the first part of the financial year eg For Financial year 2008-09, mid-year estimates for 2008 are used.

Offences: These are confirmed reports of crimes being committed. All data relates to "notifiable offences" - which are designated categories of crimes that all police forces in England and Wales are required to report to the Home Office
Crime rates are not available for Heathrow due to no population figures

Monthly crime data by borough and ward is available from the Met Police website, available around one month after month end.

The total number of recorded crimes per month is also shown. A fuller breakdown by 32 different types of crime is available on the MPS website.

There were changes to the police recorded crime classifications from April 2012. Therefore caution should be used when comparing sub-groups of crime figures from 2012/13 with earlier years.

Action Fraud have taken over the recording of fraud offences on behalf of individual police forces. This process began in April 2011 and was rolled out to all police forces by March 2013. Due to this change caution should be applied when comparing data over this transitional period and with earlier years.

Link to data on Met Police website.

Crime stats on ONS website

Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2024.

This MSOA atlas provides a summary of demographic and related data for each Middle Super Output Area in Greater London. The average population of an MSOA in London in 2010 was 8,346, compared with 1,722 for an LSOA and 13,078 for a ward. The profiles are designed to provide an overview of the population in these small areas by combining a range of data on the population, births, deaths, health, housing, crime, commercial property/floorspace, income, poverty, benefits, land use, environment, deprivation, schools, and employment. If you need to find an MSOA and you know the postcode of the area, the ONS NESS search page has a tool for this. The MSOA Atlas is available as an XLS as well as being presented using InstantAtlas mapping software. This is a useful tool for displaying a large amount of data for numerous geographies, in one place (requires HTML 5). CURRENT MSOA BOUNDARIES (2011) PREVIOUS MSOA BOUNDARIES (2001) NB. It is currently not possible to export the map as a picture due to a software issue with the Google Maps background. We advise you to print screen to copy an image to the clipboard. Tips: - Select a new indicator from the Data box on the left. Select the theme, then indicator and then year to show the data. - To view data just for one borough*, use the filter tool. - The legend settings can be altered by clicking on the pencil icon next to the MSOA tick box within the map legend. - The areas can be ranked in order by clicking at the top of the indicator column of the data table. Themes included here are Census 2011 Population, Mid-year Estimates, Population by Broad Age, Households, Household composition, Ethnic Group, Country of Birth, Language, Religion, Tenure, Dwelling type, Land Area, Population Density, Births, General Fertility Rate, Deaths, Standardised Mortality Ratio (SMR), Population Turnover Rates (per 1000), Crime (numbers), Crime (rates), House Prices, Commercial property (number), Rateable Value (£ per m2), Floorspace; ('000s m2), Household Income, Household Poverty, County Court Judgements (2005), Qualifications, Economic Activity, Employees, Employment, Claimant Count, Pupil Absence, Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1, GCSE and Equivalent, Health, Air Emissions, Car or Van availability, Income Deprivation, Central Heating, Incidence of Cancer, Life Expectancy, and Road Casualties. The London boroughs are: City of London, Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Westminster. These profiles were created using the most up to date information available at the time of collection (Spring 2014). You may also be interested in LSOA Atlas and Ward Atlas.

The mapping results of urban health determinates (Number of recorded crimes) in 350m hexagonal grids of Inner London

In the 2024/25 reporting year there were 3.4 sexual offences per 1,000 population in England and Wales, with Cleveland police force reporting the highest rate of 4.7 sexual crimes per 1,000 people.

Police-reported hate crime, number of incidents and rate per 100,000 population, Census Metropolitan Areas and Canadian Forces Military Police, 2014 to 2024.

Image: Snapshot from the Map of Community Views https://airdrive-images.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/london/img/dataset/map-of-community-views/2021-01-11T14%3A28%3A53/Cropped_CommEng_Issues_Detail_Ineq%402x.png" alt=""> To understand different communities’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, Social Mobility and Community Engagement, Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard and the GLA Community Engagement Team convened a series of virtual roundtable conversations and community meetings with groups and community leaders between April and September 2020. These conversations covered a range of complex issues. We heard about the overexposure of Black and Asian Minority Ethnic communities to the pandemic because they often work in frontline roles; the upsurge in hate crime against East and South East Asian Londoners; heightened need for domestic abuse support and better community language translations including specific dialects; the deep impact the virus has had on specific groups such as Somali, Bengali and Pakistani Londoners, particularly because of challenges with housing arrangements; the challenges for families around education for many groups including Gypsy, Roma, Traveller communities; concerns for LGBT+, Younger and Older Londoners; the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement; faith communities having to adapt their services and facing loss of income as a result, and much more. It was clear throughout that grassroots Faith and Community groups have played a crucial role meeting essential needs. The map of community views does not name specific groups but captures themes that can be addressed at policy level in close partnership with those affected, by recognising the strength of London’s community sector. 21 Roundtables and Community Meetings 250 Civil society and community groups reached

In the 2024/25 reporting year, Lincolnshire Police reported a homicide rate of 17.9 homicides per million people, the highest among the provided police force areas in England in that reporting year.