In 2023/24 there were 570 homicides that took place in England and Wales, with 370 of these victims belonging to the white ethnic group. In this reporting year, 95 homicide victims were Black, with a further 89 belonging to other ethnic groups, and 16 not known.

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.

In 2019/20, the 16 to 24 age group had the most homicides in England and Wales, at 142, compared with 138 for those aged 25 to 34, and 133 for those aged 35 to 44. Among the 16 to 24 age group, there were 53 white victims, 51 black victims, 14 Asian victims, and a further 24 from other ethnic groups.

In 2023/24, the arrest rate for people in England and Wales varied by self-identified ethnicity. People who identified as Black or Black British had an arrest rate of 17 per 1,000 population, compared with ten for people who identified as white, and eight who identified as Asian or Asian British.

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

In 2019/20, almost half of black victims of homicide in England and Wales were aged between 16 to 24, with a further 20 percent aged between 25 and 34, and nine percent aged under 16. Overall, 78 percent of black victims of homicide were younger than 35, compared with 57 percent of Asian victims, and 35 percent of white victims.

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 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.

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

Of the 570 recorded homicides in England and Wales in 2023/24, 414 of the victims were male, and 156 victims were female. Although the majority of homicide victims are men, they are also responsible for far more homicides than females are, with the vast majority of homicide suspects being male in England and Wales.

Domestic abuse numbers, prevalence, types and victim characteristics, based upon findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales and police recorded crime.

There were 9.7 homicides for every million people in England and Wales in 2023/24, unchanged from the previous year, but a decline when compared to 2021/22, when the rate was 11.6. In 2022/23, the homicide rate among UK jurisdictions was highest in Scotland, at 10.4 homicides per million people, and lowest in Northern Ireland, which had a homicide rate of 6.8. Throughout this provided time period, the homicide rate for Scotland has declined substantially. From 2003/04 to 2013/14, Scotland had the highest homicide rate among UK jurisdictions, with a peak of 27 homicides per million people recorded in 2004/05. Uptick in violent crimes since the mid-2010s In 2002/03, there were 1,047 homicides in England and Wales, but by 2013/14 this had fallen to just 533, with similar declines also evident in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Unlike the in the latter two jurisdictions, however, there was a noticeable uptick in homicides in England and Wales from 2016/17 onwards, with 720 recorded in 2019/20. Additionally, there has been a surge in violence against the person offences in England and Wales, rising from around 600,000 in 2012/13, to more than 2.1 million ten years later in 2022/23. It is unclear what exactly is driving this trend, but in an attempt to reverse it, the UK government has started to increase the manpower and funding available to UK police forces. Struggles of the UK justice system Recent boosts to police funding come after almost a decade of austerity was imposed on most public services. Although some government departments were protected from this, the Ministry of Justice saw its budget decline from 9.1 billion pounds in 2009/10,to just 7.35 billion pounds in 2015/16. Although the Justice Budget has also increased recently, there are several signs that the system as a whole is under pressure. There is a significant backlog of cases at Crown Courts in England and Wales, with serious offences taking an average of almost two years to pass through the court system. Meanwhile, prisons are struggling with severe capacity issues, along with upticks in violence and self-harm.

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.

This dataset provides police recorded crime counts and related resident population estimates for all violence and burglary (housebreaking in Scotland) (data on burglary and violence is provided separately) for the financial years 2004-5 to 2015-16. This is a longitudinal data set with data aggregated by year to financial years (1st April in one year to 31st March in following year) for the years 2004-5 to 2015-16 inclusive. Data runs from 1st April 2004 as this is the date from which all nations had national crime recording standards for police recorded crime. The dataset has been prepared to provide comparative data at the regional level - in this case - local authority districts for Scotland, and Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) as at 2015-16 in England and Wales. Data for England and Wales are directly comparable. As Scotland, and England and Wales, have different legal systems, and different police crime recording standards, the recorded crime definitions of violence and burglary (housebreaking) used here aim to provide the best available comparable data between the countries, but precise definitions of violence and burglary (housebreaking) used in the Scottish, and the English and Welsh, legal systems are not the same. Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs), previously also called Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships, are comprised of one or more English or Welsh district or unitary local authorities. Over time, some CSPs have merged and / or added additional local authorities to the partnership, this may also lead to change of partnership name. The CSPs used here are those current as listed in Home Office open data tables on recorded crime for 2015-16 (downloaded in February 2017). Police recorded crime data are data reported to and recorded by the police. Not all crimes are reported to the police, and not all reported crime are subsequently recorded. Data used from England Wales to derive this dataset do not have National Statistics status, this was withdrawn in January 2014. Data for Scotland had National Statistics status withdrawn in July 2014 but reinstated in September 2016. These data are derived entirely from open data as defined in the Open Government Licence version 3 (OGL3).

The Applied Quantitative Methods Network (AQMeN) Phase II is a Research Centre that aims to develop a dynamic and pioneering set of projects to improve our understanding of current social issues in the UK and provide policy makers and practitioners with the evidence to build a better future. Three principal cross-cutting research strands will exploit existing high-quality data resources: Education and Social Stratification will focus on social class differences in entry to, progression in and attainment at tertiary education and how they affect individuals' labour market outcomes and their civic participation; Crime and Victimisation will explore the dramatic change in crime rates in Scotland and other jurisdictions and examines the determinants and impact of criminal careers amongst populations of offenders; and Urban Segmentation and Inequality which will create innovative new measures of social segmentation and combine these with cutting-edge longitudinal and sorting-model techniques to explore the causes of neighbourhood segmentation, household location choice and neighbourhood inequalities. Five additional projects will focus on the referendum on Scottish independence, location dynamics and ethnicity and exploiting existing datasets. The research will fed into training activities and knowledge exchange events aimed at boosting capacity in quantitative methods amongst the UK social science community.

Between 2008/09 and 2018/19, 85 percent of deaths in police custody in England and Wales were white people, who make up 86 percent of the UK population. In the same time period, black people accounted for eight percent of the UK deaths in police custody, while only making up three percent of the total population.

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.