08 May Crime in London goes down as crime in the UK begins to increase
Crime over the past decade crime in the UK has gradually decreased, from 2007 to 2014, giving a promising outlook into tackling crime. London and other major cities in the UK, have seen also seen a reduction in crime overall, within the same time period. However as of 2014 crime in the UK has been rising with an additional two million crimes in 2016 in comparison to 2014 and a 5% increase over a nine year period.
Individual crime statistics for London, suggest that despite the overall crime going down, more high impact crimes have been spiking over the past few years.
From 2013 London has seen a surge in prosecutions for possessing weapons, this can be seen right up to the last few months with London’s murder count at 36 in the first quarter of 2018 due to guns, knifes and other weapons. London as of 2018 has also been branded more dangerous than New York, according to the office of national statistics and a report from the guardian.
Controversial stop and searches in the UK additionally hit their lowest point since 2008 in 2014 after being on a gradual decrease since 2010, according to statistics released from the metropolitan police. Raising the question as to whether this could be the cause for the increase in possession of weapons offences as of 2015.
Of course the possibility of more effective methods to combat crime coming to light in recent years could mean the link is nothing more than a coincidence.
In a quote from the metropolitan police press office, Laura Roberts concluded “In January 2012, the Metropolitan Police Service launched a major and renewed focus on stop and search to make it more effective and fair. Since then, there has been significant reductions in the volumes of searches carried out, increased arrest rates and reduced complaints”.
Despite the increase in high impact crimes, other offences that highly effect society such as drug taking and dealing have decreased consistently within London, since 2007. Since its highest point over the past decade, drug related offences have halved according to 2016 statistics. In convergence with this, non-domestic burglaries have reduced to a third of the original amount since their highest point in 2007 and robberies have reduced by over a quarter since their highest point in 2008. Raising the possible connection between the cut in drug related crimes with many drug users having a pattern of theft to fund their addiction.
Other crimes with a huge impact on both individuals and society as a whole such as sexual offences, have seen a drastic increase over the past decade especially from 2014, with 2016 showing the highest number of reported offences over the past decade. However this increase could be due to more people coming forward in recent years and could also potentially include offenses that happened in past years, with victims only coming forward and reporting the crimes now.
All of this creates a highly skewed and confusing picture of overall crime in both the UK and London. Despite crime decreasing in the capital, the risk doesn’t seem to be any lower.
