knife crime statistics uk 2019 by ethnicity

Figure 1 shows that the previous increase between year ending March 2014 and year ending March 2019 was driven by possession of an article with a blade or point offences, which increased 46% over the period. There was variation by ethnicity with 20% of Whites, 17% Mixed and Other (including Chinese), 13% Black and 11% of Asian being arrested for theft. (back to top). Risk factors are variables which can usefully predict an increased risk or likelihood of violent crime, drug use, gang involvement, property offences and antisocial behaviour. In October 2020, we developed a scoping paper designed to assist the Race Disparity Unit (RDU) in focusing its research questions as these relate to the current Commission on racial disparities. All Rights Reserved. An exploration of the current knowledge on young people who kill: A systematic review. The average custodial sentence received by offenders sentenced under Section 315 of the Sentencing Act 2020 was 7.5 months in year ending March 2022. To explore this issue, we analysed the literature further. A majority of ethnic minority Britons (58%) are scared that someone they care about will be a victim of knife crime, including three in ten (29%) who are very worried. This piece was originally published in January 2018, but is updated regularly to include the latest statistics. You can change your cookie settings at any time. The number of knife-related homicides went from 272 in 2007 to 186 in 2015. It is therefore unclear as to whether this term refers to those suspected and/or convicted of county lines offences, which contributes to the ambiguity of the findings reported. All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated, /aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/murdersmuggingsrobberiesandknifecrimesbyethnicity, Principal suspects convicted of homicide, by ethnic appearance of victim and principal suspect, combined data for year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020, Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2020, Murders, muggings, robberies and knife crimes by ethnicity. Their analysis also identified several protective factors that work against gang involvement (see Table 4). Cutting crime is an absolute priority for the British people therefore a priority for me and this government., Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. First, quantitative methods tend to give an incomplete picture of the drivers of crime. It is important to note that while we did not identify trust as a risk (or protective) factor for the crimes of interest, it is clear that a lack of trust is pervasive in the UKs criminal justice system. Future publications and contact details for any queries or feedback, This publication presents key statistics describing the trends in the number of offenders receiving cautions and convictions for, possession of an article with a blade or point. Knife crime in England and Wales increased last year to a new record high, figures released by the Office for National Statistics have shown. May I be given the totals for the above knife crime in England and Wales for year 2020 , broken down by race: White, black and Asian? In 2021, in London stabbings made up 74.4% of all homicides. However, in year ending March 2021 the number of offences dealt with then fell 14% in response to restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic. Theresa May, as home secretary, led efforts to drive down the number of stops, but there's anecdotal evidence from police that young people are now more inclined to carry knives because of growing confidence they won't be stopped. Knife crime offences DOUBLE in just six years to go above 50,000 for first time, newly published 2020 figures show. Edinburgh: Scottish Government Social Research; Early Intervention Foundation & Cordris Bright Consulting (2015). On the basis of that paper, the RDU commissioned us to undertake a systematic rapid evidence review of a limited range of published governmental and academic studies of crime and ethnic disparities. Please note, however, that for this age group a discount for an early guilty plea will lead to a non-custodial sentence as 4 months is the minimum period of custody given to under 18s. We then moved on to address this category of offending with reference to acquisitive violence. If you would like any further information, you can email us atCrimeStatistics@ons.gov.ukand we will endeavour to help. Among adults, Black men were about 8.4 times more likely to be arrested for robbery compared with White men. In turn, they rely on decontextualised statistics based on fragmented data taken from multiple agencies and organisations. Doctors said the injuries they were treating were becoming more severe and the victims were getting younger, with increasing numbers of girls involved. In this total, 50% were under the age of 25 and the majority (90%) were male. It is therefore evident that the relative overrepresentation of BAME people in arrest, prosecution and conviction statistics, particularly as this relates to drug offences, cannot be separated out, or understood independently from, police targeting of areas with high proportions of BAME communities. Low economic deprivation, neighbourhood interaction, and neighbour support, Gender (male), race and ethnicity, prenatal alcohol abuse, parental substance abuse history, parental depression, neighbourhood instability, History of abuse or neglect, poor family relationships, family management, internalizing or externalizing behaviour, favourable attitudes towards drug use, living situation, job status, college attendance, peer relations, belief in conformity, religious involvement, level of education, becoming pregnant, marriage or committed relationship, Cars in driveway, lights, presence of mail, burglar alarms, dogs (irrespective of size) but not cats, Appearance of residence and neighbourhood, landscaping quality and type of car driven, Amount of cover or openness, neighbouring houses and rear access, Impulsiveness, low intelligence and low school achievement, poor parental supervision, child physical abuse, punitive or erratic parental discipline, cold parental attitude, parental conflict, disrupted families, antisocial parents, large family size, low family income, antisocial peers, high delinquency-rate schools, and high-crime neighbourhoods, Physical abuse, school exclusion, poverty, lack of positive-role models, family criminality, and drug or alcohol abuse, Parental imprisonment (suggestive of antisocial parents and a lack of positive role models), the psychopharmacological properties of drugs. Methods Cross-sectional surveys of 5005 British men, 18-34 years, oversampling Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) men, lower social . Ages 6, 7 and 8 - Have been completely redacted due to low numbers of people that could be identified or self-identify. [footnote 37] This report provides an extensive review of several US and UK qualitative and quantitative cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on youth violence and gang involvement (see Table 3). Relatedly, a report by an independent educational charity showed data on the percentage of young adults prosecuted for breaching dispersal powers by ethnicity in London. For example, a lack of self-control, experience of victimisation, frequency of truanting are factors associated with adverse childhood experience (including abuse, neglect, parental criminality, substance abuse, being taken into care), poor educational attainment and school exclusion. While these studies appear to focus on experiences at school, relationships with family and peers, and substance use, it should be noted that these variables are also clearly framed by factors of economic deprivation. This had been stable at around 37%-38% . 2 Intended as an 'additional preventive tool' for use by police, KCPOs willaccording to published Home Office guidance'help to divert those who may be carrying knives, or . At Crown Court, not guilty pleas were significantly more likely but custodial remand actually lower for Black men relative to White men. Legitimacy is one such factor. Statistics for 2016-17 were back-revised within the 2017-18 bulletin, to ensure time series continuity was not affected. Most violence is caused by people hitting, kicking, shoving or slapping someone, sometimes during a fight and often when they're drunk; the police figures on violence also include crimes of harassment and stalking. Both datasets have data quality issues which make it difficult to estimate the actual scale of anti-social behaviour in England and Wales, which is likely to be much higher. Out of the 44 police forces within England and Wales, only 2 of the police forces did not recognise an increase in recorded knife crime since 2011 (BBC . You can change your cookie settings at any time. This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. This is an increase of 5% since year ending March 2021, but is 9% lower than in year ending March 2020 before the start of the pandemic. Knife crime is up 11% in London between April 2010 and September 2018. [footnote 54] These were corroborated by a literature review conducted by Fitch (2009) and by a meta-analysis conducted by Murray and colleagues (2012). Here is a comparison of knife crimes in the two countries from 2016 to 2019. Development of new and improved statistical outputs is usually dependent on reallocating existing resources. The available data suggests that ethnicity is associated with significant disparities within the CJS that are particularly acute for BAME men above 18 years old in relation to drug offences. The latest release including data to the year ending March 2020, can be foundhere. London, The previous year it was 8.2% - and in 2014-15 it was 15.5%. [footnote 36] Also, the data and analysis is skewed by research from the US, where criminal gang cultures are much more salient and deeply-embedded. The British journal of criminology, 50(3), 530-549. Stewart, D., Gossop, M., Marsden, J., & Rolfe, A. Since 2010, police numbers have decreased by almost 20,000. Please note that no data is collected on the religion of the suspect. . Read about our approach to external linking. [footnote 3]. As we argue above, a big problem with existing studies and reports is that they are essentially all based on the same datasets. MOJ analysis[footnote 5] explored the extent of the association between ethnicity and custodial sentencing within specific higher-order offences, one category of these being drug related. The tool provides further breakdowns by gender, police identified ethnicity and prosecuting police force area. Read about our approach to external linking. The dominance of data from London often has the capacity to skew the national picture. [footnote 88] There appear to be 2 groups of LO offenders. I will continue to give the police the stop and search powers, funding and extra officers they need to keep our families, communities and country safe. Purpose Knife carrying has caused considerable public concern in the UK. Turning to the prison context, trust has been identified as one of the aspects of prison life that matters most to prisoners. This has dropped from 72% in year ending March 2020. Young Mixed ethnicity men were proportionately likely to be committed to the Crown Court for trial when compared with young White men, but significantly less likely to be convicted. This precludes an in-depth exploration of the complex overlap of and inter-relationships between these categories, in that offenders are also often victims of crime and vice versa. Waples, S., Gill, M., & Fisher, P. (2009). They found that legality, deterrence, and moral alignment demonstrated significant and negative effects on offending behaviour, with obligation to obey showing no significant effect. A micro-historical case study of the spread of rioting across North London in August 2011. Data on these crimes are provided to us by the Home Office and it may be worth contacting them directly for further information on this. Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour. A meta-analysis of 179 empirical studies and 107 independent datasets found a strong relationship between gang membership and various types of offending. [footnote 71] Linked to trust in the ability of police to protect individuals from violence is trust in the ability of police to performing their functions, and 2 UK studies are highly relevant. [footnote 67] This would help to contextualise patterns of crime among different ethnic groups. This resonates with the arrest data on stop and search which showed that 56% of all people arrested for offensive weapons following a stop and search were Black. Childhood origins of antisocial behavior. This is more than twice the rate as among all parents with a child under the age of 18, of whom only 14% are concerned someone they care about could commit knife crime, including 8% who are very worried. Appendix Table A4 which is published alongside this release shows the number of police-recorded crimes since the year ending March 2003. Criminal Justice and Behaviour Vol. These statistics, released by the Office for National Statistics, showed a two per cent rise from last year's figures. (2019) Crime in England and Wales: Year ending March . While this study did not focus on offending behaviour, it is reasonable to hypothesise that a lack of legitimacy and result in uncooperative behaviour. For instance, a person may possess all the risk factors identified for violent crime (for example, childhood abuse and neglect) and never commit a violent offence. The number of stop . Studies in Christian Ethics, 27(3), 318-333. [footnote 55][footnote 56] On the basis of these reviews, it appears that a range of different factors are associated with the likelihood of engaging in ASB. For example, the MoJs most recent Proven reoffending statistics bulletin covering adult and juvenile offenders showed that of those who were either released from custody, received a non-custodial conviction at court, or received a caution between October and December 2018, over a quarter (28.1%) went on to reoffend. (2020). Second, Hough et al (2013) also tested a revised version of Tylers process-based model among a sample of 52,041 interviewees from the European Social Survey. [footnote 59]. As we suggested in relation to the governmental reports above, there are relatively few academic studies in the UK that use a methodological approach that seeks to forefront the experiences and context of those who go through the CJS. For example, London nominals were reported to be mainly Black. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Limited. The prison officer. , Brennan, I. R. (2019). Among ethnic minority Britons, 6% say a family member has been a victim of knife crime, while 8% say the same about a close friend and 4% have experienced it themselves. , Welsh, B. C., & Farrington, D. P. (2009). Black people are three times more likely to be killed on the streets of London than other ethnic groups, new figures show. In year ending March 2022 possession of blade or point offences accounted for around two thirds (67%) of knife and offensive weapon offenses dealt with compared to 56% in year ending March 2012, while possession of offensive weapon offences accounted for 30% of knife and offensive weapon offences dealt with in year ending March 2022 compared to 44% in year ending March 2012. This is confirmed by a report from the National Crime Agency (NCA, 2017) which argues that the assessment of this OCG activity across the UK is marred by limitations of police data capture. Observations of police-public interactions and in-depth interviews can be used in conjunction with the statistics to help explain why the broad patterns exist. [footnote 17] ASB encompasses behaviours such as noisy neighbours, vandalism, fly-tipping, littering, street drug dealing, vandalism, graffiti, and public drunkenness. Associations between ethnic background and being sentenced to prison in the Crown Court in England and Wales in 2015. It was revealed this month that knife crime in London has hit a new record high, with 15,080 knife-related offences in the capital as of September 2019. For example, 2 studies[footnote 48] showed that burglars select the most vulnerable targets based on aspects such as occupancy, wealth, layout, and security (see Table 6 below). [footnote 1], Risk factors are understood to be variables which can usefully predict an increased likelihood of violent crime, drug use, gang involvement, property offences and antisocial behaviour. Beginning with policing, Harcourts 2006 study in the US found that many interviewees carry weapons because they have limited confidence in the police to protect them from violence. The Office . Email: newsdesk@justice.gov.uk. Such a study might take around 3 years and begin by using quantitative data to identify a range of geographical hotspots pertaining to the crimes of interest across a sample of several towns and cities in the UK. It is likely this has been affected by changes during the pandemic, and the types of cases prioritised through the courts. Homicide Studies, 16 (2), 99-128; McVie, S. (2010). We publish statistics taken from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and crimes recorded by the police. While the same is true for Britons from ethnic minorities, they are still three times as likely to be concerned about it, at 22%. This study, however, consists exclusively of men, and most of the men (87%) are white British. For example, CJS data can be used to assess the broad overall patterns of criminality and how this relates to ethnicity, but this data does not tell us why these patterns arise. Hide. However, once again, given the fact that the offence group acquisitive violence covers such a wide range of specific offences, that lack of variations in the imprisonment rate could actually be masking underlying variations in the patterns of specific offending. A similar pattern can be seen in the number of offenders who have at least one previous knife or offensive weapon offence. We can reference 2 major and widely-cited academic studies on desistance, along with a report by HM Inspectorate of Prison (2016), and data from GOV.UK. Eight of these were under 24-years-old. SW1H 9AJ, Email: statistics.enquiries@justice.gov.uk, Crown copyright In 45.7% of offences, no suspect was identified at all. The public are generally much less anxious about someone they hold dear becoming a perpetrator of knife crime, with only 7% of people worrying about this. ethnicity and crime statistics uk 2020. ethnicity and crime statistics uk 2020. Download CSV Knife crime in England and Wales rose to record levels last year, data shows. and Avary, D. W. (1991). Their analysis was used to support the argument that desistance was not merely due to ageing and maturing character but related to 4 turning points that helped previous offenders desist. ethnicity and crime statistics uk 2019. ethnicity and crime statistics uk 2019. A rise to year ending March 2019, a fall to year ending March 2021, and then an increase in year ending March 2022. Legitimacy, trust and Compliance: An Empirical Test of Procedural Justice Theory Using the European Social Survey in Tankebe, J. and Liebling, A. Metropolitan police figures from 2019 showed that "half of all knife crime offenders in London are teenagers or even younger children", including 8% being aged just ten to fourteen. , MoJ (2019). This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-commission-on-race-and-ethnic-disparities-supporting-research/understanding-ethnic-disparities-in-involvement-in-crime-a-limited-scope-rapid-evidence-review-by-professor-clifford-stott-et-al, Understanding ethnic disparities in involvement in crime: a limited scope rapid evidence review, Professor Clifford Stott, Dr Matthew Radburn, Dr Arabella Kyprianides and Dr Matthew Muscat. , It is important that the NCA (2017) report does not provide a definition of a nominal. This increased a little from 7.4 months in year ending March 2021 but was 0.3 months lower than in year ending March 2020 before the pandemic and just below the level seen in March 2018 shortly after the legislation was introduced. As shown in table X, it is important to recognise that in absolute terms by far the largest number of reoffenders are White. The Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner Cressida Dick has said tackling violence in London is her "priority". [footnote 81] As with Sampson and Laub (2017) they also found that desistance was enabled through largely situational changes obtained through gainful employment, along with the absence of otherwise criminal peers. It is understood that reoffending is a major problem, and this is reflected in governmental statistics. These data can be found in our Crime in England and Wales: year ending September 2020 release. An analysis of indicators of serious violence: Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study and the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study 2019. has said there is no "direct correlation", said police forces were "struggling to cope", AOC under investigation for Met Gala dress, Mother who killed her five children euthanised, The children left behind in Cuba's exodus, US sues Exxon over nooses found at Louisiana plant, Zoom boss Greg Tomb fired without cause, Alex Murdaugh jailed for life for double murder. The latest release is ' Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2020 '. Although these risk factors are based predominantly on US data (and only supplemented by UK data), there is strong evidence supported by several studies of the generalisability of these types of risk factors to the UK. Breaking and entering: an ethnographic analysis of burglary. . Theft offences accounted for 19% of total arrests (where ethnicity was known) in 2018 to 2019. This long-term trend is concordant with the latest data. A similar pattern emerged when examining knife crime with injury. Over the same period, there's been a steady decline in the use of community sentences, and a sharp drop in cautions, from 30% to 11%. , Fitch, K. (2009). In contrast to the Serious Violence Strategy, where the evidence of a relationship between ethnicity and violence was at best mixed, the Home Office report of 2019 found no association between ethnicity and serious violence related behaviours (for example, carrying of weapons). 1. Anti-social behaviour powers and young adults. There were 670 cases of murder and manslaughter in 2019, excluding Greater Manchester Police, which is up 15 on the year before. [footnote 89] First, those who are LO because their levels of self-reported criminality extended over a long period of time and then increasing their level of offending in adulthood and who were then convicted. Downing Street acknowledged there was "more to be done to crack down on thugs carrying knives and ensuring they are properly punished". Cases involving all young people - those aged 10-29 - made up nearly two-thirds (60%) of all admissions. , Since robbery is an offence which involves theft with violence or threat of violence, its risk factors have been included in the section on violent crime. For instance, Bennett and Wrights[footnote 47] 1984 study of imprisoned professional burglars in southern England showed that most of their burglaries were planned. These are generally cases in the latest periods and are now counted as other disposals until final decisions are made unless separately specified. In 2018, ethnic minority groups were overrepresented for prosecutions of possession of weapons offences, accounting for 30% of all prosecutions in this category. Preventing Gang and Youth Violence. [footnote 82]. It is reasonable to conclude that this interrelationship between policing and recorded offending exaggerates the extent to which the ethnic categories are then disproportionately understood to be involved in crime more generally (see Bowling and Phillips, 2007). Youth gang affiliation, violence, and criminal activities: A review of motivational, risk, and protective factors. In 2018, the ACSL for possession of weapons offences was highest for Asian offenders at 17.1 months and lowest for Chinese or Other offenders at 8.8 months. Again, the numbers in London were proportionally much higher, with a 15% increase in homicides from 127 to 146 recorded by the Metropolitan police in 2019. knife crime statistics uk 2019 by ethnicity. Gang membership and drug involvement: Untangling the complex relationship. [footnote 87], Late-Onset (LO) Offenders: LO offenders in contrast to LCP offenders seem to begin offending later on life, usually from the age of 21 onwards. We focus specifically on patterns of ethnic disparity in relation to a) drug offences, b) organised crime groups and county lines, c) violent crime, d) burglary, robbery and theft, e) anti-social behaviour. (2014). If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a This is for 2 main reasons. We use some essential cookies to make this website work. In comparison with other jurisdictions such as the US, there are few UK-based studies that examine offending over the life-course of an individual. The number of homicides murders or manslaughter offences involving a knife or sharp instrument decreased by 8% in 2019 to 242 offences. The SPOOCS is a longitudinal analysis of more than 100 persistent young adult offenders that was conducted between 2006 and 2007. These disparities ranged from Black men being 5.4 times more likely than White men to be arrested for drug offences, to Asian men being approximately 1.4 times more likely. The section above demonstrates consistent patterns of disparity where BAME people tend to be more likely to be arrested, charged and convicted relative to White people for the range of specific crimes focused on in this paper. In the article titled On the crime of foreigners and crime against foreigners in Poland based on police statistics" Justyna Wodarczyk-Madejska et al. Public anxiety about knife crime, legislative changes and firmer guidance for judges and magistrates have led to the stiffer sentences, although offenders under 18 are still more likely to be cautioned than locked up. Taking stock of the relationship between gang membership and offending: A meta-analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior 43, no. Note: * indicates a statistically significant difference. , Trust and desistance issues are dealt with in detail in Appendix 1 and 2. (Getty) The level of knife crime offences committed by children has been laid bare in shocking new statistics. The latest police recorded crime figures show that there were 47,119 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument recorded by the police in the year ending September 2020. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., Brown, J. and Sturge, G. (2020). version of this document in a more accessible format, please email, Check benefits and financial support you can get, Find out about the Energy Bills Support Scheme, Knife and offensive weapon sentencing quarterly: year ending March 2022 main tables, Pivot table analytical tool for previous knife and offensive weapon offences, Section 28 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 (CJCA), section 28 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 (CJCA), Knife and Offensive Weapon Sentencing Statistics: April to June 2022, Knife and Offensive Weapon Sentencing Statistics: July to September 2021, Knife and offensive weapon sentencing statistics: year ending March 2021, Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2020 to 2021, Knife and Offensive Weapon Sentencing Statistics: October to December 2021, Knife and offensive weapon sentencing statistics. Prevalence of life-course-persistent, adolescence-limited, and late-onset offenders: A systematic review of prospective longitudinal studies. , https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/21/metropolitan-police-gangs-matrix-review-london-mayor-discriminatory, Home Office and Early Intervention Foundation (2015). Dont worry we wont send you spam or share your email address with anyone. However, further analysis by the MOJ[footnote 6] of drug-related offences also demonstrated distinctive disproportionality in sentencing. (2012). , Here it is important to note that the academic literature generally refer to three different types of offenders. There were 4,981 cases dealt with in January to March 2022, which was 1% higher than in the same quarter of 2020 when things started to wind down at the start of the pandemic and 15% lower than in the same quarter of 2019. These data can be found in ourCrime in England and Wales: year ending September 2020release. We were asked to address 4 interrelated issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The figures . Baroness Newlove 1 April 2019 1:00pm . It's relatively unusual for a violent incident to involve a knife, and rarer still for someone to need hospital treatment.