In 2023/24, London had the highest homicide rate of any region of the United Kingdom, at **** homicides per million people, followed by the East Midlands at **** homicides per million people.
There were *** homicides for every million people in England and Wales in 2023/24, unchanged from the previous year, but a decline when compared to 2021/22, when the rate was ****. In 2022/23, the homicide rate among UK jurisdictions was highest in Scotland, at **** homicides per million people, and lowest in Northern Ireland, which had a homicide rate of ***. Throughout this provided time period, the homicide rate for Scotland has declined substantially. From 2003/04 to 2013/14, Scotland had the highest homicide rate among UK jurisdictions, with a peak of ** homicides per million people recorded in 2004/05. Uptick in violent crimes since the mid-2010s In 2002/03, there were ***** homicides in England and Wales, but by 2013/14 this had fallen to just ***, with similar declines also evident in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Unlike the in the latter two jurisdictions, however, there was a noticeable uptick in homicides in England and Wales from 2016/17 onwards, with *** recorded in 2019/20. Additionally, there has been a surge in violence against the person offences in England and Wales, rising from around ******* in 2012/13, to more than *********** ten years later in 2022/23. It is unclear what exactly is driving this trend, but in an attempt to reverse it, the UK government has started to increase the manpower and funding available to UK police forces. Struggles of the UK justice system Recent boosts to police funding come after almost a decade of austerity was imposed on most public services. Although some government departments were protected from this, the Ministry of Justice saw its budget decline from *** billion pounds in 2009/10,to just **** billion pounds in 2015/16. Although the Justice Budget has also increased recently, there are several signs that the system as a whole is under pressure. There is a significant backlog of cases at Crown Courts in England and Wales, with serious offences taking an average of almost********** to pass through the court system. Meanwhile, prisons are struggling with severe capacity issues, along with upticks in violence and self-harm.
In 2023/24 there were 116 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 city of Manchester had 71 homicides, and had the second-highest number of homicides. In the same reporting period, the constituent countries of Northern Ireland and Wales reported the fewest homicides, at 24 each. 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 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 583 in 2023/24, it remains to be seen if this pattern will continue. Knives used in almost half of all murders In 2022/23 a knife or other sharp instrument was used in over 41 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 244 in 2022/23, compared with 282 in the previous year, and just above the 281 reported in 2017/18. Firearm homicides were much rarer than knife homicides, with 29 taking place in the same reporting year, and homicides caused by shooting only accounting for 4.9 percent of homicides overall.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>
<li>U.K. murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2019 was <strong>1.15</strong>, a <strong>1.2% increase</strong> from 2018.</li>
<li>U.K. murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2018 was <strong>1.14</strong>, a <strong>7.19% decline</strong> from 2017.</li>
<li>U.K. murder/homicide rate per 100K population for 2017 was <strong>1.22</strong>, a <strong>1.9% increase</strong> from 2016.</li>
</ul>Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.
In the 223/24 reporting year, the Cleveland police force reported a homicide rate of 22.4 homicides per million people, the highest among the provided police force areas in England in that year
Incidence rates of crime in rural and urban areas.
Indicators:
Data Source: ONS, Recorded crime data at Community Safety Partnership / Local Authority level
Coverage: England
Rural classification used: Local Authority Rural Urban Classification
Defra statistics: rural
Email mailto:rural.statistics@defra.gov.uk">rural.statistics@defra.gov.uk
<p class="govuk-body">You can also contact us via Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/DefraStats" class="govuk-link">https://twitter.com/DefraStats</a></p>
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Police recorded crime figures by Police Force Area and Community Safety Partnership areas (which equate in the majority of instances, to local authorities).
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data was reported at 1.202 Ratio in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 0.992 Ratio for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data is updated yearly, averaging 1.399 Ratio from Dec 1995 (Median) to 2016, with 22 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.865 Ratio in 2002 and a record low of 0.907 Ratio in 2014. United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: per 100,000 People data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides are estimates of unlawful homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.; ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.; Weighted average;
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
The average for 2017 based on 97 countries was 7.4 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in El Salvador: 61.8 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Japan: 0.2 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.
Between 2021 and 2024, the homicide rate for people of the Black ethnic group was **** homicides per million population in England and Wales, far higher than that of the white ethnic group, which was *** victims per million population for the same time period.
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
The average for 2017 based on 35 countries was 1.7 homicides per 100,000 people. The highest value was in Russia: 9.2 homicides per 100,000 people and the lowest value was in Luxembourg: 0.3 homicides per 100,000 people. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2017. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.
There were 583 homicides recorded in England and Wales in 2023/24, two more than in the previous reporting year, when there were 581 homicides. Between 2002/03 and 2013/14 the number of homicides in England and Wales fell significantly, from 1,047, to 533. The recent rise in homicides has occurred alongside an increase in the overall number of crimes, with police officials linking this to long-term cuts to their manpower and resources. Knives involved in over 40 percent of homicides In the 2022/23 reporting year, homicides involving a sharp instrument were involved in 244 incidents, a decline on the previous reporting year, when there were 282 such homicides. As a proportion of all homicides, sharp instruments were the main method of killing, and were used in 41.4 percent of all homicides in 2022/23. Firearm homicides are quite rare in England and Wales with shooting homicides only accounting for 4.9 percent of all homicides in the same reporting year. Between 2011/12 and 2022/23, there were 347 firearm homicides in England and Wales, compared with 2,785 knife homicides in the same period. Homicide rate highest in North East England Although London, with 124 homicides, was the UK region with the highest number of homicides in 2022/23, it was behind North East England when it came to the homicide rate. At 15.9 homicides per one million people, the North East was ahead of London at 12.9, and the rest of England and Wales, at 10.1. When compared with the rest of the UK, the homicide rate in England and Wales was above that of Scotland, which was 9, but below Northern Ireland at 12.6. Although Scotland's homicide rate is currently lower than that of England and Wales, before 2015/16 it was consistently higher, particularly in 2004/05 when it was 27, compared with 16.4 in England and Wales.
The areas of focus include: Victimisation, Police Activity, Defendants and Court Outcomes, Offender Management, Offender Characteristics, Offence Analysis, and Practitioners.
This is the latest biennial compendium of Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System and follows on from its sister publication Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2017.
This publication compiles statistics from data sources across the Criminal Justice System (CJS), to provide a combined perspective on the typical experiences of different ethnic groups. No causative links can be drawn from these summary statistics. For the majority of the report no controls have been applied for other characteristics of ethnic groups (such as average income, geography, offence mix or offender history), so it is not possible to determine what proportion of differences identified in this report are directly attributable to ethnicity. Differences observed may indicate areas worth further investigation, but should not be taken as evidence of bias or as direct effects of ethnicity.
In general, minority ethnic groups appear to be over-represented at many stages throughout the CJS compared with the White ethnic group. The greatest disparity appears at the point of stop and search, arrests, custodial sentencing and prison population. Among minority ethnic groups, Black individuals were often the most over-represented. Outcomes for minority ethnic children are often more pronounced at various points of the CJS. Differences in outcomes between ethnic groups over time present a mixed picture, with disparity decreasing in some areas are and widening in others.
For the latest data tables see ‘Police recorded crime and outcomes open data tables’.
These historic data tables contain figures up to September 2024 for:
There are counting rules for recorded crime to help to ensure that crimes are recorded consistently and accurately.
These tables are designed to have many uses. The Home Office would like to hear from any users who have developed applications for these data tables and any suggestions for future releases. Please contact the Crime Analysis team at crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk.
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.
Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 requires the Government to publish statistical data to assess whether any discrimination exists in how the CJS treats individuals based on their ethnicity.
These statistics are used by policy makers, the agencies who comprise the CJS and others (e.g. academics, interested bodies) to monitor differences between ethnic groups, and to highlight areas where practitioners and others may wish to undertake more in-depth analysis. The identification of differences should not be equated with discrimination as there are many reasons why apparent disparities may exist. The main findings are:
The 2012/13 Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that adults from self-identified Mixed, Black and Asian ethnic groups were more at risk of being a victim of personal crime than adults from the White ethnic group. This has been consistent since 2008/09 for adults from a Mixed or Black ethnic group; and since 2010/11 for adults from an Asian ethnic group. Adults from a Mixed ethnic group had the highest risk of being a victim of personal crime in each year between 2008/09 and 2012/13.
Homicide is a rare event, therefore, homicide victims data are presented aggregated in three-year periods in order to be able to analyse the data by ethnic appearance. The most recent period for which data are available is 2009/10 to 2011/12.
The overall number of homicides has decreased over the past three three-year periods. The number of homicide victims of White and Other ethnic appearance decreased during each of these three-year periods. However the number of victims of Black ethnic appearance increased in 2006/07 to 2008/09 before falling again in 2009/10 to 2011/12.
For those homicides where there is a known suspect, the majority of victims were of the same ethnic group as the principal suspect. However, the relationship between victim and principal suspect varied across ethnic groups. In the three-year period from 2009/10 to 2011/12, for victims of White ethnic appearance the largest proportion of principal suspects were from the victim’s own family; for victims of Black ethnic appearance, the largest proportion of principal suspects were a friend or acquaintance of the victim; while for victims of Asian ethnic appearance, the largest proportion of principal suspects were strangers.
Homicide by sharp instrument was the most common method of killing for victims of White, Black and Asian ethnic appearance in the three most recent three-year periods. However, for homicide victims of White ethnic appearance hitting and kicking represented the second most common method of killing compared with shooting for victims of Black ethnic appearance, and other methods of killing for victims of Asian ethnic appearance.
In 2011/12, a person aged ten or older (the age of criminal responsibility), who self-identified as belonging to the Black ethnic group was six times more likely than a White person to be stopped and searched under section 1 (s1) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and other legislation in England and Wales; persons from the Asian or Mixed ethnic group were just over two times more likely to be stopped and searched than a White person.
Despite an increase across all ethnic groups in the number of stops and searches conducted under s1 powers between 2007/08 and 2011/12, the number of resultant arrests decreased across most ethnic groups. Just under one in ten stop and searches in 2011/12 under s1 powers resulted in an arrest in the White and Black self-identified ethnic groups, compared with 12% in 2007/08. The proportion of resultant arrests has been consistently lower for the Asian self-identified ethnic group.
In 2011/12, for those aged 10 or older, a Black person was nearly three times more likely to be arrested per 1,000 population than a White person, while a person from the Mixed ethnic group was twice as likely. There was no difference in the rate of arrests between Asian and White persons.
The number of arrests decreased in each year between 2008/09 and 2011/12, consistent with a downward trend in police recorded crime since 2004/05. Overall, the number of arrests decreased for all ethnic groups between 2008/09 and 2011/12, however arrests of suspects from the Black, Asian and Mixed ethnic groups peaked in 2010/11.
Arrests for drug offences and sexual offences increased for suspects in all ethnic groups except the Chinese or Other ethnic group between 2008/09 and 2011/12. In addition, there were increases in arrests for burglary, robbery and the other offences category for suspects from the Black and Asian ethnic groups.
The use of out of court disposals (Penalty Notices for Disorder and caution
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: Female: per 100,000 Female data was reported at 0.874 Ratio in 2016. This records an increase from the previous number of 0.776 Ratio for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: Female: per 100,000 Female data is updated yearly, averaging 0.825 Ratio from Dec 2005 (Median) to 2016, with 12 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 1.115 Ratio in 2007 and a record low of 0.599 Ratio in 2011. United Kingdom UK: Intentional Homicides: Female: per 100,000 Female data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s UK – Table UK.World Bank: Health Statistics. Intentional homicides, female are estimates of unlawful female homicides purposely inflicted as a result of domestic disputes, interpersonal violence, violent conflicts over land resources, intergang violence over turf or control, and predatory violence and killing by armed groups. Intentional homicide does not include all intentional killing; the difference is usually in the organization of the killing. Individuals or small groups usually commit homicide, whereas killing in armed conflict is usually committed by fairly cohesive groups of up to several hundred members and is thus usually excluded.; ; UN Office on Drugs and Crime's International Homicide Statistics database.; ;
The homicide rate in England and Wales for 2024/24 was 9.7 homicides per million people. During the provided time period, the homicide rate was highest in 2002/03, when there were 20 homicides per million people in England and Wales.
Open Government Licence 3.0http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/
License information was derived automatically
Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) showing breakdowns of victimisation over time and by various demographic characteristics.
Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2023.
In 2023/24, London had the highest homicide rate of any region of the United Kingdom, at **** homicides per million people, followed by the East Midlands at **** homicides per million people.