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20 knife crimes a day make London the crime capital
Danny Brierley, Evening Standard17.07.08
Londoners are more likely to fall victim to violent crime and more worried about being attacked than people living anywhere else in the country, a Home Office report revealed today.
The disclosure came as new figures also showed that 7,248 knife crimes were committed in the capital last year - equivalent to a third of all the nonfatal offences in England and Wales and a rate of 20 stabbings a day.
Other statistics released today show London has the highest rate of overall offending and the worst record in the country for car crime and theft, while a third of residents believe the city is blighted by high levels of drunkenness and drug abuse.
The figures, released today in a Home Office report on crime in 2007/8, will raise questions about the Met's performance despite statistics published by the force showing sharp falls in crime over recent years.
The figures show an overall national fall in crime of nine per cent in recorded offences. They came as senior Home Office official Professor Paul Wiles said the economic downturn may prompt a surge in property crime. "Depending on the extent of the downturn, that will put upward pressure on property crime and it is a matter of at which point it triggers that upward pressure," he said.
The new knife crime figures show that across England and Wales there were 22,151 serious violent crimes involving a knife or sharp instrument - one fifth of serious violent crime. They included 231 attempted murders, nearly 14,000 robberies and more than 8,000 woundings. Londoners are more at risk of attack than anyone else in the country with 230 residents out of every 10,000 becoming a victim last year, compared with a national average of 179.
Robbery rates are higher in London than anywhere else, and the risk of being raped or suffering another form of sex attack is well above average.
There has also been a surge in credit card fraud. It rose by a fifth last year to a total of 2.7 million offences, with losses up by a quarter to £535 million.
Separate statistics published today also give the first breakdown of serious violent crimes using knives and show that London's total of 7,428 is three times greater than the next highest total of 2,294 for Greater Manchester.
It is also well above the West Midlands total of 2,303.
Although part of the discrepancy will reflect London's greater population, the figures will reinforce concerns that the capital, where 16 teenagers have died in stabbings so far this year, has a serious knife crime problem.
Other figures in today's report, from the British Crime Survey, show a third of the capital's residents believe there is a high level of drug use or dealing, and 31 per cent say there are high levels of drunkenness and rowdy behaviour.
More positively, more than half - 55 per cent - of Londoners said they have confidence in the police.
Reader views (7)
its too sad this is happening in london but the only solution to this is stiffer punishment and longer jail sentence for offenders atleast a minimum of 50years for using a knife.Because if i kill someone with a knife and am out of prison within 5years its just gonna encourage me to kill kill and kill again.
- Frankky O, london uk
I am heartbroken that this is happening to your beautiful city. I am from America, but a true Anglophile in my heart. Have been to London several times, and dream of coming "home" there to retire, but this is truly too frightening to bring my children and grandchildren. I don't want them knifed on the way for ice cream or a soda. Discipline is sadly lacking at the earliest stages of childhood. We have it here in America, because 3 year old children see it in television cartoon, and no one is real. 20 people get knifed or shot, and then they turn off the telly and go to MacDonalds. The characters that were knifed were never real anyway. Yet they will act in the same manner as their cartoon "Hero" did, and when they walk away, their victim will not be real either. They will be all puffed up with their VICTORY. This must change, in your country and ours, because if it does not, we will implode from our centres. We are a fairly new country of only a couple of hundred years, how sad that we are already destroying ourselves. You have a beautiful, beautiful country, centuries old, with the richest texture of history and culture. Don't let these little knife wielding spoiled brats ruin everything that centuries of your ancestors carved from stone. Lock them up until they cry for their Mummies, and then tell them she left!
- Sseifert, USA
Latest statistics show that there is only one other major capital city in the world that has LESS murders than London and that is Tokyo!
- Joe Blogger, Colchester
One can go further than Daveb's correct observation - the chances of a white, middle-class adult being a victim are even more remote.
- David Chown, Bath UK
The London Tourist Board must be well pleased with this "result" . . . NOT!
2012 Olympics in London? Bring your own body armour!
- Fraser, Telford Park
One very important thing to remember is that even if this means 20 people a day experience knife crime in England and Wales, over 60 million people a day don't.
- Daveb, london
How many more teenagers are going to die of political correctness before we see targeting by the police at likely offenders?
For how long do boys have to die before people realise that responsibility has to come long before Liberty?
- Martin H. Watson, Teddington
