The number of knife or sharp instrument offences recorded by the police in London rose to approximately 15,016 in 2023/24, compared with 12,786 in the previous year. This was the highest number of knife crime offences reported in London since 2019/20, when there were 15,928 offences. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20, knife crime in London increased yearly, with a particularly large increase occurring between 2016/16 and 2017/18. A wider trend The increase in knife crime witnessed in London has occurred alongside a general increase in overall crime throughout England and Wales. In 2022/23, there were approximately 6.74 million crime offences across England and Wales, compared with just over four million ten years earlier. During a similar time period, the number of knife homicides also increased, and reached 282 in 2021/22, compared with 186 in 2014/15. Due to strict gun laws in the United Kingdom, firearms are rarely used to commit homicides, with knives or other sharp instruments being used in over 41.4 percent of homicides in 2022/23. Acid and moped attacks While knife crime in London has certainly been given a lot of attention by the British media, the increase in acid and moped attacks during the same time period also generated many headlines. In 2017, for example, there were 471 acid attacks recorded by the Metropolitan Police, compared with just 51 in 2007. Moped crime also reached high levels in 2017, with both types of crime declining to much lower levels by the early 2020s. Although overall crime in London continued to rise until 2019/20, this fell back during the COVID-19 pandemic, but by 2023/24, the number of crimes committed in the capital had exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

In 2023/24 there were 262 homicides involving a knife or other sharp instrument in England and Wales, compared with 243 in the previous reporting year. During the provided time period, knife homicides have fluctuated from a low of 186 in 2014/15 to the high seen in the 2017/18 reporting year.

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.

Firearms, knife- and sharp-instrument offences, offences involving a corrosive substance, hospital admissions for assault with sharp objects, fraud, offences flagged as domestic abuse-related, corruption, anti-social behaviour, perceptions, and non-notifiable incidents.

There were 252,545 violent crime offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police Forces in London in 2023/24 an increase when compared with the previous reporting year. From a low of 186,488 violent crimes in 2015/16, violent crime has increased in almost every year. This reflects a pattern of increasing violent crime replicated across England and Wales as a whole, with a peak of 2.1 million offences reported in 2022/23. Overall offences also rising The overall crime figures for London also show a trend of increasing crime in the UK capital. In 2015/16 for example, there were 743,728 crimes recorded in London, compared to 938,020 in 2023/24. This follows a similar pattern seen in the rest of the United Kingdom, which has witnessed an uptick in crime after reaching historic lows in the mid-2010s. In 2013/14 for example, there were approximately 62 crimes per 100,000 people in England and Wales, compared with 89.7 in 2023/24. Police budgets rising again Due to the austerity policies enacted by UK governments in the 2010s, the amount the UK government spent on the police was effectively frozen between 2013/14 and 2016/17. This policy has since been reversed, with the overall UK police budget reaching 25.3 billion pounds in 2022/23. The amount budgeted for the Metropolitan Police by the Mayor of London for 2023/24 was 4.53 billion British pounds, a significant increase on the 3.33 billion budgeted in 2018/19.

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

Raw data on crime supplied by the Metropolitan Police Service and the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC).

Pan-London data includes:

- Total Notifiable Offences

- Total Victim-based crime (and Sanctioned Detection Rates)

- MOPAC Priority offences (*)

- Violence against the Person

- Violence with injury (VWI)* (and SDR)

- Serious Youth Violence

- Female victims of robbery & Violence with Injury

- Rape

- Knife Crime (and SDR)

- Knife Crime with Injury

- Gun Crime (and SDR)

- Gun Crime with firearm discharged

- Gang violence indicator

- Dog Attacks (and SDR)

- Homicide

- Sexual Offences

- Burglary (all)

- Burglary (residential)

- Robbery (all)

- Theft & Handling

- Theft from Person*

- Theft of Motor Vehicle*

- Theft from Motor Vehicle*

- Criminal Damage*

- Domestic Offences

- Homophobic Hate Victims

- Racist & Religious Hate Victims

- Faith Hate Victims

- Disability Hate Victims

- Stop & Search Totals (and related Arrest rate)

- Police Strengths - Officer/Staff/Special Constable/PCSO

- Satisfaction/Confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service (ease of contact/satisfaction with action taken/well-informed/fairly treated/overall satisfaction/overall confidence) NB. Quarterly data

- Crime-related calls to Police by category

- Anti-Social Behaviour-related calls to Police by category Borough data includes:

- MOPAC Priority offences - Police Strengths - Officer/Staff/Special Constable/PCSO

- Fear of crime ("to what extent are you worried about crime in this area?") NB. Quarterly data

NB. Action Fraud have taken over the recording of fraud offences nationally on behalf of individual police forces. This process began in April 2011 and was rolled out to all police forces by March 2013. Data for Greater London is available from Action Fraud here.

Knives or other sharp objects were involved in 46 percent of homicides in England and Wales in 2023/24, the most of any method of killing. Homicides which involved hitting or kicking without a weapon made up 17.4 percent of homicides, while shootings were identified as the method in 3.9 percent of homicides. Overall, there were 570 homicides in this reporting year, which was slightly lower than in the previous year, when there were 585, but noticeably higher than in 2014/15, when there were 504. Firearm homicides rare in England and Wales In 2023/24, there were 262 knife homicides in England and Wales, compared with 282 in 2021/22, which was the highest figure recently. By comparison, homicides which involved the use of a firearm were far less common, with just 22 in the 2023/24 reporting year. Due to strict gun laws and low levels of ownership, the UK contrasts starkly with the United States, which has struggled with high levels of gun violence. Although some specialist police officers in England and Wales are licensed to carry firearms, the majority of police officers are unarmed. In 2023/24, for example, there were just 5,861 armed police, out of around 147,746 police officers. Overall knife crime on the rise Like many other types of crime, knife crime offences in the 2010s started to decline at the start of the decade before creeping up again from 2014 onwards, reaching almost 52,000 in 2019/20. In London, where much of the media’s attention on knife crime is focused, there were 15,928 knife crime offences alone in 2019/20. Although this fell during subsequent reporting years, which were influenced by COVID-19 restrictions, it remains to be seen if the trend will continue. In 2023/24, the number of knife offences in the capital was higher than in any other year since 2019/20.

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.

Recorded crime figures for CSP areas. Number of offences for the last two years, percentage change, and rates per 1,000 population for the latest year.

Raw data on crime supplied by the Metropolitan Police Service and the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). Pan-London data includes: - Total Notifiable Offences - Total Victim-based crime (and Sanctioned Detection Rates) - Violence against the Person - Violence with injury (VWI) (and SDR) - Serious Youth Violence - Female victims of robbery & Violence with Injury - Rape - Knife Crime (and SDR) - Knife Crime with Injury - Gun Crime (and SDR) - Gun Crime with firearm discharged - Gang violence indicator - Dog Attacks (and SDR) - Homicide - Sexual Offences - Burglary (all) - Burglary (residential) - Robbery (all) - Theft & Handling - Theft from Person - Theft of Motor Vehicle - Theft from Motor Vehicle - Criminal Damage - Domestic Offences - Homophobic Hate Victims - Racist & Religious Hate Victims - Faith Hate Victims - Disability Hate Victims - Stop & Search Totals (and related Arrest rate) - Police Strengths - Officer/Sergeant/Staff/Special Constable/PCSO - Satisfaction/Confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service (ease of contact/satisfaction with action taken/well-informed/fairly treated/overall satisfaction/overall confidence) NB. Quarterly data - Crime-related calls to Police by category - Anti-Social Behaviour-related calls to Police by category Borough data includes: - Fear of crime ("to what extent are you worried about crime in this area?") NB. Quarterly data NB. Action Fraud have taken over the recording of fraud offences nationally on behalf of individual police forces. This process began in April 2011 and was rolled out to all police forces by March 2013. Data for Greater London is available from Action Fraud here .

There were 1,248 firearm offences recorded in London 2023/24, compared with 1,085 in 2022/23. Compared with previous years, there were far fewer offences in 2020/21 and 2021/22, which may have been due to the lockdowns brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also reflected in London's overall crime rate, which fell from 102.4 crimes per 1,000 people in 2019/20, to 83.3 in 2020/21, before increasing to 92.8 in 2021/22, and 105.8 in the most recent reporting year. Firearm homicides rare in the UK The United Kingdom has some of the strictest gun laws in the world, resulting in relatively low levels of gun crime and firearm homicides. In 2022/23 just 4.9 percent of homicides in England and Wales were the result of shootings, compared with 85.7 percent in the United States in 2021. The most common method of killing for homicides in England and Wales was by far the use of a sharp instrument at 41.4 percent of homicides in the 2022/23 reporting year. London police budget rising In 2023/24 the budget for policing in London reached 4.53 billion British pounds, compared with 4.44 billion pounds in the previous financial year. This is the sixth-consecutive year of London's police budget increasing, compared with the period between 2013/14 and 2018/19, when it remained around 3.3 billion pounds, and was actually smaller than in 2012/13 when the budget was 3.62 billion. These budget increases have occurred alongside a recruitment drive for police officers. In 2023, there were 35,900 police officers in London, compared with just 31,087 in 2018.

Between 2021 and 2024, the homicide rate for people of the Black ethnic group was 39.8 homicides per million population in England and Wales, far higher than that of the white ethnic group, which was 8.5 victims per million population for the same time period.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The What Worked? Policy Mobility and the Public Health Approach to Youth Violence study sought to further the ESRC's strategic objective of a 'safer, fairer society' through establishing a new evidence-base on public health approaches to violence reduction, and the ways such policies transfer between jurisdictions, to shape policy, guide best practice, and inform academic and public debate. Its main aim was to respond to the urgent social problem of rising youth violence. England and Wales have seen marked increases in homicide, knife crime, and hospital admissions for stab wounds, with particular concentrations in the city of London. Cressida Dick, when Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, stated that tackling youth violence was her 'number one priority.'

In March 2019, UK Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled a consultation on a new public health strategy for youth violence. This approach, which seeks to address violence using principles of prevention and education rather than policing and justice, marks a major step-change in policy. The interest in developing this approach stems primarily from Scotland, where radical reductions in violent crime over the last decade have been attributed to the adoption of a public health model. There was however a lack of clear understanding of 'what worked' in the Scottish context. While there have indeed been marked declines in youth violence, the mechanisms that have driven this decrease are poorly understood. There is confusion over what public health approaches are, how they work, and the conditions under which such ideas can travel. As a result, despite significant potential, the implications of the public health approach remain vague.

This study was delivered in a three work-streams approach, over a three-year period:

1. What Worked
Through interviews with elite actors/professionals - senior police, politicians, and civil servants - the research team aimed to establish an expert appraisal of the causes of violence reduction in Scotland. This was complemented by a detailed documentary analysis, investigating the social, political, and cultural conditions in which violence reduction occurred, and a series of 20 semi-structured interviews with practitioners and residents of communities affected by violence to establish a 'bottom-up' account of change. Finally, available statistical data on violence and health was leveraged to triangulate explanations. These data sources were combined to produce a policy briefing, two journal articles, and a short film on the theme of 'what worked'.

2. Policy Travels
Using flexible and responsive ethnographic methods, the research team aimed to track the evolution of the public health approach in London as it evolved in real-time, entering the 'assumptive worlds' of policy through attendance at key meetings and events. Observations were complemented by a series of semi-structured interviews with elite actors engaged in violence reduction in London, and 20 semi-structured interviews with residents and youth practitioners, exploring the factors that promote or impede change. Mirroring data-collection in Scotland, relevant statistical data was used to evaluate the extent to which policy changes are impacting on violence reduction. These data were used to produce a second policy briefing, two journal articles, and a series of podcasts on 'how ideas travel'.

3. Connecting Communities
Data from these work-streams will be connected via an open access data set to enhance understanding of best practice in violence reduction. Data will be analysed and published as an academic monograph aimed at scholars working in the areas of criminology, public health and social policy. Through our advisory group and engagement with policy user-groups, the research team will engage directly with policy actors at the highest level, and using cooperative methods will create a practitioner toolkit. Communities of policy, practice and public will be connected through a website, a series of events and a roadshow.

Further information and outputs can be found on the UKRI What Worked? Policy Mobility and the Public Health Approach to Youth Violence project page.

The UKDS study currently includes 127 qualitative interview transcripts, drawn from policy-makers and community participants. See the 'Data List' in the documentation for more details.

Monthly London Ambulance Service call out data by type of incident and borough.

This excel file contains numbers for ambulance calls for each borough in London including: All incidents attended, All assault incidents attended, Assaults on women, Assaults on teenagers, Gun injuries, Knife injuries, All weapon injuries, Animal injuries, Binge drinking (alcohol poisoning where patient aged under 40), Cocaine, and Heroin overdoses

Volumes are derived by searching a database holding the records of all ambulances despatched in London.

The records consist of data collected by paramedics or other ambulance staff, who record retrospectively if they believe an assault to have taken place. They also collect data on whether a weapon was used, or if the attended patient is suffering from an alcohol related illness.

Each record has information from the 999 Call Handler. This can include data on specific type of weapon is collected. This is how we derive gun or knife injury as well heroin or cocaine overdose.
From time to time the data collected may not be an accurate representation of the actual event. However the data is relevant for understanding broad patterns in different types of crime and disorder nonetheless.

The number of incidents where a animal bite injury has been reported to the ambulance service. This data is filtered to include only bites from large animals (there are no specific data on dog bites, however the data is used to derive broad trends on dog issues.)
The number of incidents where the ambulance service have attended someone suffering from an alcohol related illness. Focussing on patients under 40 allows broad trends in Binge Drinking to be identified. Older age groups may be more likely to be attended by the ambulance service for longer term alcohol related health issues.

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.