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London's murder rate is falling to a 28-year low after campaigns against gangs and youth violence.
There have been 106 killings in London so far this year — 30 fewer than the same period last year. If the rate remains the same, this year's total could be about 130 — one of the lowest annual figures in recent history.
Police say a key reason for the lower number is a growing fear among young black men and teenagers in gangs of being jailed for street murders.
Scotland Yard chief Sir Paul Stephenson highlighted the figure while attacking politicians' comparisons of crime between London and Baltimore — the American city which featured in television crime drama The Wire.
In August, Conservative home affairs spokesman Chris Grayling said some British inner cities were so blighted by gangs they resembled the violent culture depicted in the cult series.
Metropolitan Police Authority member Jenny Jones said this week that allowing regular armed police patrols in London threatened a “Baltimore situation”.
The Met Commissioner pointed out that the murder rate in the capital was two per 100,000 people, compared with 35 in the American city. Last year there were 224 murders in Baltimore, which has a population of 630,000, while London's total was 154.
Sir Paul said the murder rate was down by 34 per cent this year, the lowest level for 10 years. In recent years the total has been driven higher by an increase in gang fights and attacks involving young men and teenagers. There have been 11 teenage murders so far this year, compared with a record total of 30 last year and 27 the previous year.
Of those who have died this year, 10 have been stabbed and one has been shot. Six were black, three were Asian, one Middle Eastern and one white.
Senior murder detectives believe the reduction in teenage killings is because of factors including the Met's Operation Blunt effort against knives and youth violence.
But officers also believe the sheer number of teenage killings last year — and the volume of children and young men being charged and jailed — have had an effect on the figures.
Detective Chief Superintendent Hamish Campbell, operations head of the Met's homicide and serious crime command, said: “I think there is a greater fear of being caught and I think people have just got fed up and destroyed by the number of young men who were getting killed. That has meant more witnesses coming forward to court.
“So far this year we have had 92 murder trials and there is a significant conviction rate. The fact that so many young people are going to prison, most for life, is having an effect.”
How London compares with Baltimore
Baltimore
Pop: 630,000
Murders: 224
London
Pop: 8 million
Murders: 154
(2008 figures)
Reader views (5)
Tom, we`re becoming a less violent society??? Do you get out much? Do you watch the news or read papers at all? I guess you live in a nice cosy cave somewhere.
- Mattandclivy@Sky.Com, Islington, 30/10/2009 16:15
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Murder rate falling! I believe that as mush as our kids keep getting smarter year on year! It's amazing what you can do when you manipulate the figures...
- Paul B, London, 30/10/2009 13:18
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We're becoming less violent Tom, are we? Years ago murder was hardly ever heard of in London and in those days there was lots of lead everywhere, including inside buildings. Don't you read the newspapers or watch the news on tv - like youths kicking a puppy's head in, or youths with guns, yobs kicking merry hell out of innocent pasers by. Less violent? I think evolution is going backwards in this country. How many manslaughers this year then, as not many people get charged with actual murder, do they?
- Sue, Orpington, Kent, 30/10/2009 12:58
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Encouraging, but there´s certainly no room for complacency.
- Graham Rodhouse, Helmond, Netherlands, 30/10/2009 11:57
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The murder rate started falling around the time Ian Blair was appointed, or slightly before, having risen in the early 2000s - it's now about three murders a month less than in 2000, at around ten per month.
It's about half what it was at the peak - this has been known and freely available for everyone to look at, so what the hell does Grayling think he's doing whipping up fake fear and outrage? That's the BNP's job.
Depending on how you want to spin it, it's either the result of the harsh punishments and lock-em-up rhetoric of New Labour or a result of the massive expansion of resources to the police, or we're just becoming a less violent society, which is true across the western world at the moment, some suggest because of the removal of lead from petrol.
Not that we were ever a particularly murderously violent society in the first place, as the comparisons with other cities show, even at the worst period (12 months to June 2004).
- Tom, London, UK, 30/10/2009 10:59
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