Last Updated on January 9, 2019 by Karl Thompson
According to a recent BBC news article, London’s murder rate is increasing rapidly, so rapidly in fact that it’s just overtaken the murder in New York’s, a city historically notorious for its problems with violent crime.
So is this just a moral panic, or is this recent increase in violent crime something we should be taking seriously?
What are the recent statistics?
So far in 2018 the MET police have investigated 46 murders, and the rate seems to be increasing alarmingly:
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- 8 murders were investigated in January
- 15 murders were investigated in February
- 22 murders were investigated in March.
Of the 44 murder investigations so far launched by the MET in 2018, 31 have been the results of stabbings.
So is this just a moral panic?
Focusing just on knife crime here, because this is the implement used in nearly 3/4s of all murders, the short answer is, probably not….
This recent increase seems to be in the context of a longer term increase in knife crime…
Although London’s knife crime rate is twice the national average…
So while there does seem to be an issue with London’s knife crime rate increasing (rapidly!) this may not be representative of the country as a whole!
What’s causing this increase in Knife crime and murder?
A lot of the debate has focused on the fact that the police are stopping and searching fewer people. Police have become more withdrawn and are less pro-active in preventing crime through the use of stop and search:
There is anecdotal evidence from the police that this has led to an increase in knife crime because young people are now more inclined to carry knives because they know they are less likely to be stopped and searched.
(Ironically it was Theresa May who oversaw this reduction as home secretary, partly responding to fears that the disproportionate use of stop and search against young black men was alienating huge numbers of people.)
Interestingly, knife crime is increasing despite a stiffening of penalties for possessing an offensive weapon:
You’re significantly more likely to get a custodial sentence today than compared to 2009, but this doesn’t seem to be putting people off carrying or using knives. I guess the ‘less likely to get caught’ outweighs the ‘likeliness of a stiff penalty’ or the ‘risk of being a victim if I don’t carry one’ factors in the cost-benefit calculation.
Right realists would agree with this approach – of increasing stop and search, of going back to a more random stop and search strategy.
Do we need a public health approach to reducing knife crime?
Labour MPs Sarah Jones (chair of the all-party parliamentary group on knife crime) and Dianne Abbott (both speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme), have both suggested that London needs to adopting a public health approach to reducing Knife crime – which means, for example:
- engaging in major intervention work with youth workers
- going into schools, changing the social norms, educating kids, teaching them what it is to be a man, teaching them how they don’t need to carry knives.
- Working with mental health charities
Both point to case studies of New York and Glasgow, where such interventions have been adopted with both seeing significant reductions in violent crime (while at the same time also having a lighter touch approach to stop and search.
These policies are very left realist in nature – and both of the above MPs are skeptical about the usefulness of increasing the role of random stop and search – pointing out the toxic legacy it leaves in terms of police-community relations.
Selected sources
Crime in England and Wales: Year Ending 2017
London murder rate overtakes New York’s (BBC)
Nine charts on the rise of knife crime in England and Wales (BBC)
Relevance to A-level sociology
Knife crime and other violent crimes seem to be increasing recently in England and Wales, so this topic is of continued relevance within the crime and deviance module.
