Serious Violence in London

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has a strong legacy of work on improving our criminal justice system, including policy recommendations to reduce serious violence (It Can be Stopped, 2018) and tackle inner-city gang membership (Dying to Belong, 2009).

Yet despite this blueprint of interventions to Government to make streets safer, Londoners continue to fear serious violence that affects them and the people that they know, and the issue continues to represent a significant social and financial cost. This is not without reason: knife crime offences have risen each year in the capital since the Covid-19 pandemic (Figure 1), and high-profile cases of stabbings dominate headlines and illustrate the prevalence of serious violence in the city. From a fiscal standpoint, we estimate that in 2023, violence in London cost £7 billion.

To better understand experiences of serious violence in London over the last five years, the CSJ updated polling questions from our 2018 It Can be Stopped report to grasp how the situation in the capital has changed. Worryingly, recent trends reveal an increased risk of young people being caught up in a cycle of fear and violence. A greater number of teenage homicides were recorded in London in 2023 than the year prior, with 21 teenagers being killed. More broadly, in England and Wales, almost 18 per cent of knife and offensive weapon offences resulting in a caution or conviction were committed by children aged 10-17. Fear, either through knowing someone who has been a victim of knife crime, or knowing someone who carries a knife, often drives the tendency to carry a knife for protection.

Previous CSJ research has shown how crime can also be driven by people having little to do in their spare time, few positive role models, and being in a state of poverty combined with a lack of opportunity and aspiration. We know that recorded crime in London is more prevalent in neighbourhoods with higher levels of income deprivation. Overall, 40 per cent more crimes were recorded in the most income-deprived areas in 2023, compared with the least income-deprived 10 per cent.

Throughout the CSJ’s research – and research conducted by others across the sector – the importance of preventative techniques to reduce serious violence has been raised, including successful practices used in the Glasgow Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV). To delve further into this and better understand Londoners’ current experiences of serious violence, as well as their attitudes towards the police, the CSJ commissioned a poll of 1,007 residents of Greater London aged 18 and over. Fieldwork took place between 22-27th March 2024. The overall sample was weighted to be nationally representative of the target UK population and filtered down to the target audience. The polling was conducted by Survation.