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.

The crime rate in London was 105.8 crime offences per thousand people for the 2023/24 reporting year, compared with 100.9 in the previous year. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20 the crime rate in the UK capital increased in every reporting year, with the sudden drop seen in 2019/20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing a sharp reduction in certain types of crime such as robbery and theft. Police record over 938,00 crimes in 2023/24 The number of crimes reported by the police in London was 938,020 in 2023/24, compared with 887,870 in the previous reporting year. Although there was a slight dip in overall recorded crime in the aftermath of the pandemic, this was not the case for violent crime in particular remains at elevated levels. One positive is that the number of homicide offences in 2023/24 has remained beneath the 159 reported in 2017/18. Additionally, the Metropolitan Police force area has a lower crime rate than many of the UK's other major police forces, such as West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, and Merseyside. Police recruitment drive ends era of cuts   The rise in crime in London happened alongside a decline in both personnel and funding for the London Metropolitan Police. Compared with 2010 for example, there were around 3,000 fewer police officers in 2018, while annual funding was reduced to around 3.3 billion pounds between 2013/14 and 2018/19, compared with 3.62 billion in 2012/13. These cuts were due to the policy of austerity that was implemented by the UK government during that time period, but this has recently been replaced by pledges to increase spending and to recruit more police. In 2023/24, the budget for the Metropolitan Police was 4.53 billion pounds, while the number of officers in 2023 increased to around 34,900.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Crime Rates of offences per thousand population, by broad crime grouping, by financial year for wards.

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.

Ward data should not be aggregated to give a borough or London total. This is because a small percentage (less than 5%) of crimes in this dataset have not been geocoded to a ward. Therefore total numbers and rates are indicative only, and are not an exact measure at ward level.

The rate is calculated using ward GLA 2012-based (SHLAA) population projections, and population data calculated and constrained to 2012 Borough (SHLAA) projections.

The London figure only includes the Met Police area, not the City of London.

The London total includes all offences in the Met Police Area including those that could not be geocoded. Therefore the London total will not equal the sum of the wards.

Some ward boundaries changed in 2014. From 2013/14 the data shown is for the new boundaries. This only affects Hackney, Kensington and Chelsea, and Tower Hamlets.

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.

Data by detailed crime group and month are available from the MPS website.

Number and rate (per 100,000 population) of homicide victims, Canada and Census Metropolitan Areas, 1981 to 2023.

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

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.

Part of Release: Official Sub-Ward, Ward and Borough level crime counts.

This is the most accurate data available for counting numbers of crimes in London according to official recorded crime types, by the month the offence occurred, and by either borough, ward or sub ward location.**** ****

******The page contains the LSOA level file******

Click here for corresponding ward level data: Recorded Crime Summary Data for London: Ward Level

Click here for corresponding borough level data: Recorded Crime Summary Data for London: Borough Level

Choose from the three data sets (‘Sub-Ward data’, ‘Ward data’ or ‘Borough data’) according to your requirements.

‘Sub-Ward data’ counts the number of crimes in each sub ward area of London (Census Lower Super Output Area or LSOA) per month according to crime type. Use this data if you need to analyse crime data at a sub ward level. Because not all crimes can be matched to a specific LSOA area, you should not use this data set to count crimes by ward or borough. For these purposes use one of the other datasets according to the level of geographic precision you need.

‘Ward data’ counts the number of crimes in each ward area of London per month, according to crime type. Use this data if you need to analyse crime data according to the location of geographic wards. Because not all crimes can be matched to a ward area, you should not use this data set to count crimes by borough. For this purpose use one of the Borough level dataset provided.

‘Borough data’ counts the number of crimes in each borough area of London per month, according to crime type.

Each of the data sets will contain the latest two years of data available. The categories of crime counts within them may change from time to time. Below is a list of the crime types you can currently extract (*only at borough or ward level):

**Minor Category: Major Category **

Murder: ViolenceAgainstThePerson

CommonAssault: ViolenceAgainstThePerson

OffensiveWeapon: ViolenceAgainstThePerson

Harassment: ViolenceAgainstThePerson

Otherviolence: ViolenceAgainstThePerson

AssaultWithInjury: ViolenceAgainstThePerson

WoundingGBH: ViolenceAgainstThePerson

*Rape: SexualOffences

*OtherSexual: SexualOffences

PersonalProperty: Robbery

BusinessProperty: Robbery

BurglaryInADwelling: Burglary

BurglaryInOtherBuildings: Burglary

TheftOrTakingOfMotor: TheftAndHandling

TheftFromMotor: TheftAndHandling

MotorInterferenceAndTampering: TheftAndHandling

TheftFromShops: TheftAndHandling

TheftOrTakingOfPedalCycles: TheftAndHandling

OtherTheftPerson: TheftAndHandling

OtherTheft: TheftAndHandling

HandlingStolenGoods: TheftAndHandling

*CountedPerVictim: FraudOrForgery

*OtherFraudAndForgery: FraudOrForgery

CriminalDamageToADwelling: CriminalDamage

CriminalDamageToOtherBldg: CriminalDamage

CriminalDamageToMotor: CriminalDamage

OtherCriminalDamage: CriminalDamage

DrugTrafficking: Drugs

PossessionOfDrugs: Drugs

OtherDrugOffences: Drugs

GoingEquipped: OtherNotifiableOffences

OtherNotifiable: OtherNotifiableOffences

Each row of data in the data sets contains:

*The number of incidents according to the Month Recorded, the specific crime type, and the Location

*The Month Recorded

*The broad crime type (Major HO category – eg Robbery)

*The specific crime type (Minor HO category – eg Robbery: Personal Property)

*The Location (Sub –Ward, Ward or borough depending on the data set selected)

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 2023/24, London had the highest homicide rate of any region of the United Kingdom, at 13.1 homicides per million people, followed by the East Midlands at 12.2 homicides per million people.

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.

There were 938,020 crimes recorded in London in the 2023/24 reporting year, compared with 887,870 in the previous year. During this time period, crime in London increased steadily, with the figure of 912,487 in 2019/20 a previous peak when there were approximately 102.4 crimes per 1,000 people taking place in the UK capital, compared with 105.8 crimes per 1,000 people in the most recent year. What types of crime are rising? Compared with crime levels before the COVID-19 pandemic, some types of crime have yet to reach the same levels they were at in the 2019/20 reporting year. The number of criminal offences related to theft and drugs, are slightly down in 2023/24 when compared with pre-pandemic trends. On the other hand, the number of violent crimes reached a peak of 252,545 offences in 2023/24, while the number of sexual offences in London since 2021/22 has been far higher than in previous years. London compared to the rest of UK While the UK capital receives extensive coverage for its crime problems, the increase in crime there is part of a wider trend afflicting the rest of the country. The overall crime rate for England and Wales in 2023/24 was 89.7 crimes per 1,000 people, slightly lower than in 2022/23, when the crime rate was the highest since 2006/07. Additionally the Metropolitan Police, the police service responsible for policing Greater London had the sixth-highest crime rate among police force areas with Cleveland police force in North East England having the highest.

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

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.