Reducing homicide and delivering safer streets for all remain at
the top of the government’s agenda to cut crime and level up in
the new year, Policing Minister set out today.
The Minister brought together leaders of all parts of the
policing system – including the top cop in England and Wales for
investigating homicide – to focus on delivering the promises set
out in the Government’s Beating Crime Plan: reducing homicide,
serious violence, and neighbourhood crime.
He called on policing leaders to make a commitment to develop
robust plans on how to prevent murders over the next six to
twelve months. The Minister asked for this plan of action to
include a dashboard of trends and drivers of homicide to
facilitate a more joined-up response, a national homicide
prevention strategy to coordinate activity to reduce rates of
murder, and action by police to better predict where domestic
homicide is likely to occur, so they can take preventative
action.
Overall crime has been falling in recent years, with a 14% drop
in crime (excluding fraud and computer misuse) between June 2019
and June 2021. And in the year to June 2021, there were
continuing falls in neighbourhood crime – including robbery and
burglary – as well as falls in knife crime (excluding possession)
and firearms offences, reflecting the impact of lockdown
restrictions.
However, data has shown a worrying recent increase in homicide.
Home Office figures showed there were 197 homicides in the
quarter between April and June 2021 – the highest in three years
(when excluding the 39 Essex lorry deaths in October 2019). There
is particular concern about homicides of teenagers – a total of
30 teenagers were tragically killed in London last year.
Minister for Crime and Policing said:
“Victims are not just statistics – they are mothers, fathers,
sons and daughters, and we have a moral duty to prevent them
being killed at the hands of others.
“Knife crime has fallen since 2019, but we are determined to
eradicate this scourge on our society. We are putting 20,000
extra police officers on the streets – with 11,053 additional
officers already recruited – empowering police to use stop and
search to confiscate knives, and investing significantly in early
intervention programmes which divert young people away from crime
and into education and jobs.”
“This is a complex problem and it requires us all to work
together to deliver on our promises to the British people. I am
determined to ensure leaders across policing and law enforcement
understand how serious we are about preventing homicide, and give
them the tools they need to keep our families safe.”
The Minister set out that policing had received a generous
funding settlement for 2022/23 – with up to £1.1 billion
extra being made available – and the best way to show
taxpayers a return on that investment was by driving further
falls in crime.
Homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime are
concentrated around ‘hotspots’, often driven by drugs, and
disproportionately involve repeat offenders.
The Beating Crime Plan
sets out the Government’s evidence-based approach to driving down
these crimes, including:
- Recruiting 20,000 extra police officers and empowering these
officers to use stop and search powers to make our streets safer.
Last year, almost 16,000 knives and other dangerous weapons were
removed from the streets thanks to police use of stop and search
- Investing £242m since 2019 to zone in on serious violence and
homicide hotspots – this includes £105.5m funding for our
Violence Reduction Units, which have reached 300,000 at risk
young people so far
The Government also recently published its 10-year Drug Strategy
to tackle the harms caused by drug misuse. Illegal drugs are a
major driver of homicide – 48% of all homicides in the year to
March 2020 were drug-related.
The Strategy involves measures to reduce both demand and supply
of illegal drugs including:
- Dismantling over 2,000 county lines, which are used to supply
drugs and often involve recruiting children
- Investing a record £780m in the drug treatment system to get
people off the drugs that fuel crime in the first place
- Delivering a generational shift in demand for illegal drugs,
including by ensuring people face tougher consequences for
so-called recreational misuse
The meeting was attended by the National Police Chiefs Council’s
homicide lead, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy, and
Chief Constable Alan Pughsley, the NPCC’s Crime Operations lead.
It also brought together leaders from the College of Policing,
National Crime Agency, and Association of Police and Crime
Commissioners.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct and the independent
police inspectorate, HMICFRS, were also represented at the
meeting.
The meeting followed a Homicide Prevention Summit in December,
convened by the Policing Minister, which brought together seven
police forces accounting for almost half of all homicides in
England and Wales – the Metropolitan Police, Essex, Merseyside,
Greater Manchester, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, and West
Mercia. The numbers reflect the fact the forces cover the
country’s large urban areas and share challenges such as gangs,
knife crime and drugs.
