For the year ending March 2023, 5.7 percent of crime offences resulted in a charge or summons in England and Wales. While this was an improvement when compared with the previous four quarters, it was far lower than in the first quarter of 2015, when 15.5 percent of crimes were solved.

With a crime rate of 122.1 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 English 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. 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 440,000 in 2023/24. 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 2023, it took an average of 676 days for a crown court case to reach a conclusion from the time of the offence. This is most likely related to the large backlog of cases in crown courts, which reached over 62,200 in 2023. Furthermore, prisons in England and Wales are dangerously overcrowded, with just 1,458 spare prison places available as of June 2024.

There were 535 homicides recorded in England and Wales in 2024/25, the fewest number of homicides in a reporting year since 2013/14, when there were 533. Between 2002/03 and 2013/14, the number of homicides in England and Wales fell significantly before rising again in the late 2010s. This increase in homicides 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.

There were 116 homicides recorded by the police in London in the 2023/24 reporting year, compared with 112 in 2022/23. During this provided time period, 2017/18 had the most homicides in London at 159, with the fewest occurring in 2016/17, when there were 107. Comparisons with the rest of the UK With a homicide rate of 13.1 per million people, London had the highest homicide rate among UK regions in 2023/24. On a more localized level, the Metropolitan Police of Greater London reported a lower homicide rate than other police force areas that cover major cities, such as the West Midlands Police Force, while the highest homicide rate among UK police forces was in Cleveland, in North East England. Across England and Wales as a whole, the number of homicides in 2023/24 was 583, compared with 581 in the previous year. Knives the most common weapon used In 2022/23 there were 244 homicides in England and Wales involving a knife or other sharp instrument. As a comparison, there were just 29 homicides caused by a firearm in the same reporting year. While guns are generally difficult to obtain in the United Kingdom, knives are far more prevalent and have become a major problem for the police, particularly in London. The number of knife crime offences in London rose from 9,752 in 2015/16 to over 15,928 by 2019/20, before falling back recently, to 12,786 in 2022/23. Although 2023/24 saw a return to near pre-pandemic levels, with 15,016 offences.

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 research project is a subproject of the research association “Strengthening of integration potentials within a modern society” (Scientific head: Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Heitmeyer, Bielefeld) which contains 17 subprojects and is supported by the ministry of education and research. In almost all the economically highly developed countries violent crime increased significantly in the second part of the last century - in contrast to the long term trend of decline of individual (non-governmental) violence since the beginning of modern times. The authors develop an explanatory approach for these facts which is inspired mainly by Norbert Elias´s civilization theory and Emil Durkheim´s theory on society. Detailed time series on the development of different forms of violent crime are presented and set in relation with certain aspects of economic and social structural changes in three countries and also refer to the changes in integration of modern societies. The analysis deals especially with effectivity and legitimacy of the governmental monopoly of violence, the public beneficial security and power system, forms of building social capital, economic and social inequality, precarity of employment, different aspects of increasing economization of society, changes in family structures and usage of mass media and modern communication technologies. Register of tables in HISTAT: A: Crime statistics A.01 Frequency of types of crimes in different countries (1953-2000) A.02 Suspects by crimes of 100.000 inhabitants of Germany, England and Sweden (1955-1998) A.03 Murders, manslaughter and intentional injuries by other persons by sex of 100.000 persons after the statistics of causes of death (1953-2000) A.04 Clearance rate by types of crimes in Germany, England and Sweden (1953-1997) A.05 Prisoners of 100.000 inhabitants of Germany, Great Britain and Sweden (1950-2000) B: Key indicators for economic development in Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the USA B1: Data on the overall economic framework B1.01 Percent changes in the real GDP per capita in purchasing power parities (1956-1987) B1.02 Percent changes in GDP per capita in prices from 2000 (1955-1998) B1.03 GDP of Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom in purchasing power parities in percent og the US GDP (1950-1992) B1.04 Labor productivity index for different countries, base: USA 1996 = 100 (1950-1999) B1.05 GDP per hour of labor in different countries in EKS-$ from 1999 (1950-2003) B1.06 Foreign trade - exports and imports in percent of the GDP of different countries (1949-2003) B1.07 GDP, wages and Unit-Labor-Cost in different countries (1960-2003) B2: Unemployment B2.01 Standardized unemployment rate in different countries with regard to the entire working population (1960-2003) B2.02 Share of long-term unemployed of the total number of unemployed in different countries in percent (1992-2004) B2.03 Youth unemployment in different countries in percent (1970-2004) B2.04 Unemployment rate in percent by sex in different countries (1963-2000) B3: Employment B3.01 Employment rate in percent in different countries (1960-2000) B3.02 Share of fixed-term employees and persons in dependent employment in percent in different countries (1983-2004) B3.03 Share of part-time employees by sex compared to the entire working population in different countries (1973-2000) B3.04 Share of un-voluntarily part-time employees by sex in different countries (1983-2003) B3.05 Share of contract workers in different countries in percent of the entire working population (1975-2002) B3.06 Share of self-employed persons in different countries in percent of the entire working population (1970-2004) B3.07 Shift worker rate in different countries in percent (1992-2005) B3.08 Yearly working hours per employee in different countries (1950-2004) B3.09 Employment by sectors in different countries (1950-2003) B3.10 Share of employees in public civil services in percent of the population between 15 and 64 years in different countries (1960-1999) B3.11 Female population, female employees and female workers in percent of the population between 16 and 64 years in different countries (1960-2000) B3.12 Employees, self-employed persons in percent of the entire working population in different countries (1960-2000) B4: Taxes and duties B4.01 Taxes and social security contributions in percent of the GDP (1965-2002) B4.02 Social expenditure in percent of the GDP (1965-2002) B4.03 Social expenditure in percent of the GDP (1960-2000) B4.04 Public expenditure in percent of the GDP in different countries (1960-2003) B4.05 Education expenditure in percent of GDP (1950-2001) B5: Debt B5.01 Insolvencies in Germany and England (1960-2004) B5.02 Insolvencies with regard to total population in different countries (1950-2002) B5.03 Consumer credits in different countries (1960-2002) C: Income distribution in Germany, Great Britain and Sweden C.01 Income inequality in different countries Einkommensungleicheit in verschiedenen Ländern (1949-2000) C.02 Income inequality after different indices and calculations in different countries (1969-2000) C.03 Redistribution: Decline in Gini-Index through transfers and taxes in percent in different countries (1969-2000) C.04 Redistribution: Decline in Gini-Index through transfers and taxes in percent with a population structure as in the United Kingdom in 1969 in different countries (1969-2000) C.05 Redistribution efficiency: Decline in Gini-/ Atkinson-Index through transfers and the share of social expenditure of the GDP in different countries (1969-2000) C.06 Index for concentration of transfers in different countries (1981-2000) C.07 Distribution of wealth in West-Germany (1953-1998) C.08 Distribution of wealth in the United Kingdom (1950-2000) C.09 Distribution of wealth in Sweden (1951-1999) C.10 Relative income poverty in different countries (1969-2000) C.11 Reduction of poverty in different countries (1969-2000) C.12 Neocorporalism index in different countries (1960-1994) D: Perception of safety D.01 Satisfaction with democracy in different countries (1976-2004) D.02 Revenues and employees in the private security sector in different countries (1950-2001) D.03 Decommodification-Score in different countries (1971-2002) E: Demographics E.01 Birth rates: Birth per 1000 women between 15 and 49 years in different countries (1951-2001) E.02 Fertility rate in different countries (1950-2004) E.03 Marriages per 100.000 persons in different countries (1950-2003) E.04 Share of foreigners of the entire population in different countries (1951-2002) E.05 Internal migration in different countries (1952-2001)

Selection of time series of different scientific publications and of publication of the official statistics:

EUROSTAT, European Statistical Office OECD: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; ONS: Office for National Statistics, England; SCB: Statistiska Centralbyran, Sweden; Federal Statistical Office, Wiesbaden. Deutschland; WHO: World Health Organization.

Since 2016, the number of crimes per 100,000 inhabitants has been on a downward trend and was at its lowest in 2021, although this was likely due to the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, crime rates have risen again. In 2023, the police recorded roughly ***** criminal offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. Youth criminal suspects Since the number of crimes is increasing, so is the number of suspects. Concerningly, the number of juvenile suspects has seen a rather significant increase and is currently at its ************ since 2016. Suspects who are considered in the juvenile category are aged 14 to 17 years old. In Germany, children under the age of 14 cannot be prosecuted and if they commit a crime, then social services usually step in to try and help. In general, punishments for those convicted are much more lenient as it is often considered that due to their age, they may not have been aware of the repercussions of their actions. For example, regardless of the crime committed, no child under the age of 18 can be tried as an adult. In contrast, in England and Wales, there were around ***** people aged between 15 and 20 in prison. Crimes solving rate With a higher crime rate, it is also important to consider how many crimes are solved. Once a crime is solved, the hope is that the victim can get some type of closure and answers, and also that the perpetrator faces justice for the crimes they committed. In 2023, the police solved around **** million crimes in Germany and for the past three years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of crimes solved. Some cases are, of course, easier to solve than others. Crimes of arson and other fire-hazard-related crimes had a comparably low clearance rate at around ** percent. In contrast, drug-related offenses were much more frequently solved. Even though 2023 saw the lowest clearance rate in 20 years, it was still at ** percent.