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.

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;

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.

Police recorded crime figures by Police Force Area and Community Safety Partnership areas (which equate in the majority of instances, to local authorities).

Saint Kitts and Nevis saw a murder rate of 65 per 100,000 inhabitants, making it the most dangerous country for this kind of crime worldwide as of 2023. Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 20 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. Meanwhile, Celaya in Mexico was the most dangerous city for murders. Violent conflicts worldwide Notably, these figures do not include deaths that resulted from war or a violent conflict. While there is a persistent number of conflicts worldwide, resulting casualties are not considered murders. Partially due to this reason, homicide rates in Latin America are higher than those in Afghanistan or Syria. A different definition of murder in these circumstances could change the rate significantly in some countries. Causes of death Also noteworthy is that murders are usually not random events. In the United States, the circumstances of murders are most commonly arguments, followed by narcotics incidents and robberies. Additionally, murders are not a leading cause of death. Heart diseases, strokes and cancer pose a greater threat to life than violent crime.

In 2023/24, 22 homicide offences involved the use of a firearm in England and Wales, compared with 29 in the previous reporting year. Overall, there were 570 homicides in England and Wales in 2023/24, with 262 of these involving a knife or other sharp instrument.

The United States had, by far, the highest homicide rate of the G7 countries between 2000 and 2021. In 2021, it reached 6.81 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, an increase from 6.52 in 2020 and 5.07 in 2019. By comparison, Canada, the G7 nation with the second highest homicide rate, had 2.07 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021. Out of each G7 nation, Japan had the lowest rate with 0.23 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.

Data tables relating to offences involving weapons as recorded by police and hospital episode statistics.

United Kingdom UK: Death Rate: Crude: per 1000 People data was reported at 9.100 Ratio in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 9.200 Ratio for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Death Rate: Crude: per 1000 People data is updated yearly, averaging 11.300 Ratio from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 12.200 Ratio in 1963 and a record low of 8.700 Ratio in 2011. United Kingdom UK: Death Rate: Crude: per 1000 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: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Crude death rate indicates the number of deaths occurring during the year, per 1,000 population estimated at midyear. Subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate provides the rate of natural increase, which is equal to the rate of population change in the absence of migration.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Reprot (various years), (5) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and (6) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.; Weighted average;

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex, region and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), in the latest weeks for which data are available.

Based on a comparison of coronavirus deaths in 210 countries relative to their population, Peru had the most losses to COVID-19 up until July 13, 2022. As of the same date, the virus had infected over 557.8 million people worldwide, and the number of deaths had totaled more than 6.3 million. Note, however, that COVID-19 test rates can vary per country. Additionally, big differences show up between countries when combining the number of deaths against confirmed COVID-19 cases. The source seemingly does not differentiate between "the Wuhan strain" (2019-nCOV) of COVID-19, "the Kent mutation" (B.1.1.7) that appeared in the UK in late 2020, the 2021 Delta variant (B.1.617.2) from India or the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) from South Africa.

The difficulties of death figures

This table aims to provide a complete picture on the topic, but it very much relies on data that has become more difficult to compare. As the coronavirus pandemic developed across the world, countries already used different methods to count fatalities, and they sometimes changed them during the course of the pandemic. On April 16, for example, the Chinese city of Wuhan added a 50 percent increase in their death figures to account for community deaths. These deaths occurred outside of hospitals and went unaccounted for so far. The state of New York did something similar two days before, revising their figures with 3,700 new deaths as they started to include “assumed” coronavirus victims. The United Kingdom started counting deaths in care homes and private households on April 29, adjusting their number with about 5,000 new deaths (which were corrected lowered again by the same amount on August 18). This makes an already difficult comparison even more difficult. Belgium, for example, counts suspected coronavirus deaths in their figures, whereas other countries have not done that (yet). This means two things. First, it could have a big impact on both current as well as future figures. On April 16 already, UK health experts stated that if their numbers were corrected for community deaths like in Wuhan, the UK number would change from 205 to “above 300”. This is exactly what happened two weeks later. Second, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly which countries already have “revised” numbers (like Belgium, Wuhan or New York) and which ones do not. One work-around could be to look at (freely accessible) timelines that track the reported daily increase of deaths in certain countries. Several of these are available on our platform, such as for Belgium, Italy and Sweden. A sudden large increase might be an indicator that the domestic sources changed their methodology.

Where are these numbers coming from?

The numbers shown here were collected by Johns Hopkins University, a source that manually checks the data with domestic health authorities. For the majority of countries, this is from national authorities. In some cases, like China, the United States, Canada or Australia, city reports or other various state authorities were consulted. In this statistic, these separately reported numbers were put together. For more information or other freely accessible content, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Over 3,500 people were killed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 2001 - of these, over 2,000 have been attributed to republican paramilitaries, and over 1,000 were attributed to loyalist paramilitaries. Almost half of all killings during the Troubles have been attributed to the Irish Republican Army alone (also known as the Provisional IRA), while a much smaller number was attributed to British security forces. These figures are in stark contrast to those regarding death by organization or affiliation, where over 50 percent of all deaths were of civilians, one third was of British security forces, and just 16 percent of deaths were recorded as paramilitary deaths from either side.

There were 11,607 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending February 21, 2025, compared with 12,365 in the previous week. During this time period, the two weeks with the highest number of weekly deaths were in April 2020, with the week ending April 17, 2020, having 22,351 deaths, and the following week 21,997 deaths, a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Death and life expectancy As of 2022, the life expectancy for women in the UK was just over 82.5 years, and almost 78.6 years for men. Compared with 1765, when average life expectancy was under 39 years, this is a huge improvement in historical terms. Even in the more recent past, life expectancy was less than 47 years at the start of the 20th Century, and was under 70 as recently as the 1950s. Despite these significant developments in the long-term, improvements in life expectancy stalled between 2009/11 and 2015/17, and have even gone in decline since 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, for example, life expectancy at birth fell by 23 weeks for females, and 37 weeks for males.2. COVID-19 in the UK The first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were recorded on January 31, 2020, but it was not until a month later that cases began to rise exponentially. By March 5 of this year there were more than 100 cases, rising to 1,000 days later and passing 10,000 cumulative cases by March 26. At the height of the pandemic in late April and early May, there were around six thousand new cases being recorded daily. As of January 2023, there were more than 24.2 million confirmed cumulative cases of COVID-19 recorded in the United Kingdom, resulting in 202,156 deaths.

The crime rate in the United Kingdom was highest in England and Wales in 2023/24, at 89.7 crimes per 1,000 people, compared with Scotland which had 55 crimes per 1,000 population and Northern Ireland, at 52.3 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 93.4 crimes per 1,000 people in 2002/03, to just 52.3 by 2021/22. Overall crime on the rise In 2022/23 there were approximately 6.74 million crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, with this falling to 6.66 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 19.3 billion pounds, with this cut to between 17.58 billion and 16.35 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 150,000 police officers in the UK, with this increasing to 171,000 by 2023. A creaking justice system During the period of austerity, the Ministry of Justice as a whole saw its budget sharply decline, from 9.1 billion pounds in 2009/10, to just 7.35 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 676 days for a crown court case to go from offence to conclusion, compared with 412 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.

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), by local authority, health board and place of death in the latest weeks for which data are available. The occurrence tabs in the 2021 edition of this dataset were updated for the last time on 25 October 2022.

This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period March 2023 - February 2024. The SHMI is the ratio between the actual number of patients who die following hospitalisation at the trust and the number that would be expected to die on the basis of average England figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there. The SHMI covers patients admitted to hospitals in England who died either while in hospital or within 30 days of being discharged. To help users of the data understand the SHMI, trusts have been categorised into bandings indicating whether a trust's SHMI is 'higher than expected', 'as expected' or 'lower than expected'. For any given number of expected deaths, a range of observed deaths is considered to be 'as expected'. If the observed number of deaths falls outside of this range, the trust in question is considered to have a higher or lower SHMI than expected. The expected number of deaths is a statistical construct and is not a count of patients. The difference between the number of observed deaths and the number of expected deaths cannot be interpreted as the number of avoidable deaths or excess deaths for the trust. The SHMI is not a measure of quality of care. A higher than expected number of deaths should not immediately be interpreted as indicating poor performance and instead should be viewed as a 'smoke alarm' which requires further investigation. Similarly, an 'as expected' or 'lower than expected' SHMI should not immediately be interpreted as indicating satisfactory or good performance. Trusts may be located at multiple sites and may be responsible for 1 or more hospitals. A breakdown of the data by site of treatment is also provided, as well as a breakdown of the data by diagnosis group. Further background information and supporting documents, including information on how to interpret the SHMI, are available on the SHMI homepage (see Related Links).