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 crimes which have risen consistently. 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due to the policy of austerity that was implemented by the UK government during that time period, but this has recently been replaced by pledges to increase spending and to recruit more police.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.

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.

There were 452,868 theft offences recorded by the Police in London in 2023/24, which was the highest amount of theft offences in the UK capital since 2019/20.

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

Historical chart and dataset showing U.K. crime rate per 100K population by year from 1990 to 2020.

There were 34,465 robbery offences recorded by the police in London in 2023/24, compared with 24,958 in the previous reporting year, the peak for robbery offences in London during the provided time period.

There were ******* 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 ******* 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 *** 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 ******* crimes recorded in London, compared to ******* 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 ** crimes per 100,000 people in England and Wales, compared with **** 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 **** billion pounds in 2022/23. The amount budgeted for the Metropolitan Police by the Mayor of London for 2023/24 was **** billion British pounds, a significant increase on the **** billion budgeted in 2018/19.

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.

In 2023/24 there were 56,263 burglary offences recorded in London, an increase when compared with the previous reporting year. During the provided time period, the reporting year with the most burglary offences recorded was 2018/19, when there were approximately 81,463 burglaries.

Number of crimes and crime rate by type of public transport, including bus, LU / DLR, London Overground, and London Tramlink. Monthly data released 3 months at a time at end of each quarter.

The BTP is responsible for policing the rail network in London, including the TfL managed London Underground (LU), the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), London Tramlink and the London Overground (LO) services. Crime figures for the LU, DLR, London Tramlink and LO have been provided by the BTP. Crime figures for LU and DLR are reported together as these networks are policed by the same division of the BTP. The BTP only deals with crime relating to the rail and Tramlink network

The MPS is responsible for policing the rest of London’s transport network, including the bus network. The figures reported for the bus network are based on official MPS figures for bus-related crime unless otherwise stated.

There is no distinct category of ’bus crime’ in the MPS crime recording system. Recorded crime data is extracted from the MPS system using a complex query that searches all MPS crime for transport venue codes and those that have the word bus, bus stop, bus station and transport related words somewhere in the electronic case file. For this reason, some crimes that did not occur on the bus network will be included in the figures. This is different from the BTP as all crimes dealt with by the BTP and included on their crime recording system relate directly to the rail network.

The crime volume and rate figures displayed by month are accurate according to the month they were extracted from police and TfL systems and are subject to revision due to late reporting of crimes and adjustment of crime and passenger figures. The full financial year total of figures will differ slightly as they will reflect the most accurate and up to date crime and passenger data available; hence the monthly figures here should not be used to generate full financial year totals. The adjusted financial year figures are published in the annual TfL Crime Statistics Bulletin available here.

Data will be updated on a quarterly basis, showing monthly breakdowns of crime volume and rate of crime per million passenger journeys. The rate of crime per million passenger journeys is calculated by the dividing the volume of crimes by the number of passenger journeys multiplied by one million.

A crime rate per million passenger journeys was unavailable for London Overground prior to April 2011 due to lack of accurate passenger journey information across the entire London Overground network.

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. From 2013/14, the numbers and rates for 2013 ward boundaries in Hackney, K&C and Tower Hamlets, have all been modelled based on the proportion of population living in each area at the 2011 Census.

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.

Crime incident counts and rates per million passenger journeys broken down by transport type.

This data is sourced from the TFL Open Datastore and reconstructed into a more user-friendly format.

metadata.csv contains all relevant information about how the data is sourced, collected, and distributed.

Notes:

*Underground rates and volume numbers include DLR (Docklands Light Railway) through March 2017.

This is the tenth report in an annual series combining crimes recorded by the police and interviews from the British Crime Survey (BCS) for the financial year 2010/11. Each source has different strengths and weaknesses but together they provide a more comprehensive picture of crime than could be obtained from either series alone. Additional explanatory notes are available in the User Guide to Home Office Crime Statistics.

Longer term datasets contain https://data.gov.uk/dataset/0e26ee1b-26b7-406e-a3b1-f3481b324977/local-police-recorded-crime-data" class="govuk-link">police recorded crime for police force areas and local authorities

https://data.gov.uk/dataset/ea7a5bd4-4c26-4ea3-b1ff-c5c0dfe9fcfd/crime-in-england-and-wales-2010-11" class="govuk-link">Crimes detected in England & Wales 2010/11 reports on the levels and trends in detections and detection rates in England and Wales.

The last annual crime statistics https://data.gov.uk/dataset/df7e3554-2a62-497a-bbd6-2c3982dba5a5/crime-in-england-and-wales-2009-10" class="govuk-link">Crime in England and Wales 2009/10 was published in July 2010.

See the https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesannualsupplementarytables" class="govuk-link">Crime Survey supplementary tables on the nature of: burglary, vehicle-related theft, bicycle theft, household theft, personal and other theft and vandalism.

With a crime rate of 132.4 per 1,000 people Cleveland, in North East England, had the highest crime rate of all the police force areas in England and Wales in 2023/24. High crime rates are evident in other areas of northern England, such as West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester at 121.7 and 117.7 respectively. In the English capital, London, the crime rate was 105.1 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 on the 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.

This statistic shows the quarterly crime rate on public transportation in London, United Kingdom between 2013/14 and 2018/19, broken down by mode. The London Underground recorded the highest crime rates, with a peak of 14.2 crimes per million passenger journeys recorded between January and March 2019.