England: Homicide rate reaches highest in a decade

England: Homicide rate reaches highest in a decade

The number of homicides recorded by police in England and Wales rose to its highest level in a decade in the year leading up to June 2018, new figures reveal.

When last year’s London and Manchester terror attacks are excluded, the latest figures show a 14 per cent rise in the homicide rate from 630 to 719 offences.

The latest statistical bulletin on crime from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) states: “This continues an upward trend in homicides since March 2014, indicating a change to the long-term decrease over the previous decade.”

The figure stands at its highest since 775 homicides were recorded in the year to March 2008.

Commenting on the figures, Joe Traynor of the ONS centre for crime and justice said: “Over recent decades we’ve seen continued falls in overall levels of crime, but in the last year the trend has been more stable. The latest figures show no change in the total level of crime but variation by crime types.

“We saw rises in some types of theft and in some lower-volume but higher-harm types of violence, balanced by a fall in the high-volume offence of computer misuse. There was no change in other high-volume offences such as overall violence, criminal damage and fraud. To put today’s crime survey figures into context, only two out of 10 adults experienced crime in the latest year.”

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