Public spending on the police service in the United Kingdom rose to 27.3 billion British pounds in 2023/24, the highest amount spent during the provided time period. Between 2009/10 and 2013/14 the amount of public money spent on the police fell from 19.3 billion pounds to just 16.35 billion pounds, due to the austerity policies followed by the UK government at the time.

In 2024/25 the amount budgeted for police services in London was approximately 4.8 billion British pounds. As can be seen, the budget for London's police decreased by 340 million GBP from 3.62 billion GBP in 2012/13 to 3.28 billion GBP in 2013/14. It remained around this figure in 2017/18, but increased slightly to 3.33 billion in 2018/19, and more substantially in 2019/20 to 3.66 billion British pounds.

London's Metropolitan Police is by far the largest police force in the United Kingdom with 34,315 officers in 2024. At 16,356 officers, the Scottish police force has the second-largest force in terms of officer numbers, followed by Greater Manchester police force, which had 8,141 officers that year. Although the Metropolitan Police are responsible for policing most of Greater London, the City of London Police force covers the historic center of London, which is around one square mile in size, and numbered 995 officers in 2024. Crime in the UK In 2022/23 there were approximately 6.74 million crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, the highest number of crimes recorded in a reporting year between 2003 and 2023. Although crime declined from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s there has been a noticeable increase in crimes from 2014/15 onwards. In terms of the crime rate, England and Wales had the highest in the United Kingdom, at 93.6 offences per one thousand people, compared with 52.8 in Scotland, and 58.4 in Northern Ireland. Cuts to policing reversed in recent years Between 2010 and 2017 the number of police officers in the UK fell from 172,000 officers to just 150,000. During this same period, the London Metropolitan Police saw officer numbers decline by around 2,000 officers. The fall in police personnel was a result of UK-wide funding cuts, during this time period, with police expenditure falling from 19.3 billion in 2009/10 to 16.35 billion by 2013/14. This policy has since been reversed, and the current UK government is seeking to recruit more officers and generally spend more on the police service. As of 2023, there were 171 police officers in the UK, and government expenditure on the police service was 25.3 billion British pounds.

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.

The Home Office is publishing a series of consistent police revenue funding numbers from 1995/96-2009/10. This allows comparison of funding levels over time.

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.

United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure as % of General Government Expenditure data was reported at 4.658 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 4.676 % for 2016. United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure as % of General Government Expenditure data is updated yearly, averaging 6.272 % from Dec 1988 (Median) to 2017, with 30 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 10.176 % in 1988 and a record low of 4.658 % in 2017. United Kingdom UK: Military Expenditure as % of General Government Expenditure data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Defense and Official Development Assistance. Military expenditures data from SIPRI are derived from the NATO definition, which includes all current and capital expenditures on the armed forces, including peacekeeping forces; defense ministries and other government agencies engaged in defense projects; paramilitary forces, if these are judged to be trained and equipped for military operations; and military space activities. Such expenditures include military and civil personnel, including retirement pensions of military personnel and social services for personnel; operation and maintenance; procurement; military research and development; and military aid (in the military expenditures of the donor country). Excluded are civil defense and current expenditures for previous military activities, such as for veterans' benefits, demobilization, conversion, and destruction of weapons. This definition cannot be applied for all countries, however, since that would require much more detailed information than is available about what is included in military budgets and off-budget military expenditure items. (For example, military budgets might or might not cover civil defense, reserves and auxiliary forces, police and paramilitary forces, dual-purpose forces such as military and civilian police, military grants in kind, pensions for military personnel, and social security contributions paid by one part of government to another.); ; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security.; Weighted average; Data for some countries are based on partial or uncertain data or rough estimates.

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.

The United Kingdom spent approximately 6.85 billion British pounds on its prison system in 2023/24, an increase when compared to the previous year. Between 2011/12 and 2019/20 the UK consistently spent less than it did in 2009/10 and 2010/11, mainly due to the austerity policies pursued by the coalition Government of the time. Throughout this time period, expenditure on prisons was lowest in 2014/15 at 393 billion pounds, and highest in the most recent financial year. Prisoners and prison costs The prisoner population of the United Kingdom was around 92,803 in 2023. Although this was quite a high figure in historical terms, the incarceration rate among the UK's three jurisdictions has fallen slightly since 2008. Nevertheless, there is evidence the government is struggling to cope with the size of the prison population. The number of spare prison places in England and Wales fell to a low of just 768 in September 2023. The average cost of a prison place has also increased recently. In 2015/16, a prison place cost approximately 35,182 pounds per year, reaching 48,162 in 2020/21, before falling slightly to 46,696 pounds in 2021/22. Steep rise in prison violence in the mid-2010s In 2018, there were over 34,000 assaults among prisoners, and a further 10,200 assaults on prison staff in England and Wales. This was far higher than in the years preceding 2018, and correlated with a reduction in prison officers. In 2017, there were just 18,400 prison officers working in England and Wales, compared with almost 25,000 in 2010. Since 2017, however, the number of prisons officers has increased, and in 2023 there were approximately 22,300. It is unclear if this increase in prison officers has succeeded in reducing prisoner violence, with the number of incidents recently rising again following a huge reduction of incidents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2023/24 there were 7,277 kidnapping offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, a slight decrease when compared with the previous year when there were 7,378 offences. Kidnapping offences reached a low of 1,388 offences in the 2012/13 reporting year but have been increasing in almost every reporting year since then. Rising crime overall Kidnapping offences have increased at a time of rising overall crime. After declining for several years between 2003/04 and 2010/11, overall crime offences suddenly started to increase, and reached a recent peak of 6.74 million offences in 2022/23. While the overall number of crimes has grown, UK crime rates are actually slightly lower than in the early 2000s, due to population growth. As of 2023/24, the number of crimes per 1,000 people was 89.7 in England and Wales, 55 in Scotland, and 58.4 in Northern Ireland. Money and manpower to blame? The current crime trends that are prevailing in the UK have led to questions about the ability of the police to counter it, and if they have the manpower and resources to do so. For much of the 2010s the police had cuts to their funding leading to a decline in officer numbers, although both trends have recently been reversed, with funding increasing from the late 2010s onwards. Other parts of the justice system, such as legal aid funding have not seen a reversal of this trend, with spending in 2022/23 below that of 2014/15 in real terms.

There were 37,959 blackmail offences reported by the police in England and Wales in 2023/24. Between 2002/03 and 2013/14 the number of blackmail offences fluctuated from a low of 1,201 in 2007/08 and a high of 2,481. From 2014/15 onwards, however, the number of offences has increased dramatically, reaching a peak in the most reporting year. This rise in blackmail has also occurred in Scotland, which saw extortion crimes reach 2,008 offences in 2022/23, compared with just 441 in 2019/20. In Northern Ireland, there were 937 blackmail offences, compared with 266 in 2019/20. What is driving the increase in blackmail? The steep rise in blackmail and extortion offences recently is likely related to the proliferation of cyber crime in the United Kingdom. In a 2019 survey, for example, five percent of respondents reported being the victims of device hacking-related extortion at least once. A 2023 global survey on cybercrime, also revealed that around a quarter of respondents had been the victim of an extortion e-mail scam. Extortion based on the threat to distribute intimate images, or sextortion, is another aspect of the increase in blackmail crime. There has been a steep rise in the number of revenge porn reports, with women in particular being targeted by online intimate image abuse. Crime on the rise since the mid-2010s While not rising as dramatically as blackmail offences, overall crime in England and Wales has also been on the rise. In 2022/23, for example, there were 6.74 million crime offences, compared with just 4.03 million in 2013/14. Although there are undoubtedly several factors that have influenced this overall rise in crime, the cuts to police funding between 2009/10 and 2016/17, along with the decline in police officers that occurred as a result, are possibly two of the most important reasons. Other areas of the justice system are also under significant pressure, with courts struggling with a backlog of cases, and prisons operating very close to capacity in recent month.