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to the policy of austerity that was implemented by the UK government during that time period, but this has recently been replaced by pledges to increase spending and to recruit more police.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

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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

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 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

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.

Part of Release: Official Sub-Ward, Ward and Borough level crime counts. Choose from the three data sets (‘Sub-Ward data’, ‘Ward data’ or ‘Borough data’) according to your requirements. This page contains the borough level data files Click here for corresponding LSOA level data: Recorded Crime Summary Data for London: LSOA Level Click here for corresponding ward level data: Recorded Crime Summary Data for London: Ward Level ‘Borough data’ counts the number of crimes in each Local Authority 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 boroughs. 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)

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.

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

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.