Table of contents

On 20 October 2022, the House of Lords is due to debate the following motion:

Lord Snape (Labour) to move that this House takes note of (1) the current level of violent crime, gang activity, and burglaries, and (2) the strategy of His Majesty’s Government for addressing these problems.

1. Statistics on violent crime and burglaries

The most recent Office for National Statistics (ONS) crime statistics show data up to the end of March 2022 for England and Wales. However, the ONS stressed limitations with the data in recent years due to the coronavirus pandemic. This included difficulties comparing data across years due to changes in how it was collected; for example, crime survey data was collected by telephone from May 2020 because of coronavirus restrictions.

Therefore, the data outlined below provides snapshots of crime breakdowns as selected and reported by the ONS, with some of this coming from crime surveys and some from police recorded crime data. Traditional crime survey data is generally considered a better indicator of long-term trends than police recorded crime data. Although a good measure of well-reported crimes (such as homicides), police recorded crime data relies on crimes being reported and can also be influenced by changes in policing or recording practices. The ONS does not designate police recorded crime data as national statistics.

1.1 Violent crimes

Using crime survey data, the ONS reported 1,507,000 incidents of violent crime in the year ending March 2022. Attempting to analyse trends, the ONS stated:

Using a comparable dataset adjusted for changes in the sample and questionnaire between the CSEW [traditional crime survey data for England and Wales] and TCSEW [telephone crime survey data for England and Wales], there was no statistically significant change in the total number of violent incidents. However, there was a statistically significant decrease in the number of victims (29% decrease) compared with the year ending March 2020.

Violent crime includes a range of offence types, from “minor assaults, such as pushing and shoving that result in no physical harm, to murder”.

The ONS states that crime survey data provides the best overall picture of trends in violent crime. A graph showing pre-pandemic levels of violent crime (from the 1980s up to 2020) can be found at figure 7 of the most recent ONS crime bulletin. The graph shows that the annual rate of violent crime had decreased in the five-year period from March 2015 to March 2020, from around 1.7 million incidents to around 1.2 million incidents.

However, the ONS reported that police recorded crime data for ‘violence against the person’ offences indicated 2.1 million offences in the year ending March 2022. This showed an 18% increase compared with the 1.8 million offences recorded in the year ending March 2021 and the 1.8 million offences recorded in the pre-coronavirus year ending March 2020.

In addition, the ONS also used police recorded crime data to report that there were:

  • 710 homicides in the year ending March 2022
  • 49,027 incidents involving knives or other sharp instruments in the same period

Commenting on these in turn, the ONS stated:

Although levels of homicide have remained fairly consistent in recent years, there was a decrease in the number of homicide offences in the year ending March 2021 (to 570 offences) compared with the year ending March 2020 (714 offences). This decrease coincided with the coronavirus pandemic and related restrictions to social contact. Since the end of these restrictions, homicide levels have returned to pre-coronavirus pandemic levels. The police recorded 710 homicide offences in the year ending March 2022, a 25% increase compared with the year ending March 2021.

The rate of homicide in the population remains low at 12 per 1 million people in the year ending March 2022, compared with 10 per 1 million people in the year ending March 2021.

[…]

Knife-enabled crime recorded by the police saw a 10% increase to 49,027 offences in the year ending March 2022, from 44,642 in the year ending March 2021. There were increases across all knife-enabled violent and sexual offences except for attempted murder, which saw a 9% decrease (to 441 offences). Levels of knife-enabled crime in the year ending March 2022 remained below levels recorded in the pre-coronavirus year ending March 2020 (55,078 offences). This is predominantly because the number of knife-enabled robbery offences (17,037 offences) was still 30% lower than in the year ending March 2020 (24,314 offences).

Further information on both offences, including pre-pandemic trends, can be found in sections 3 and 4 of the ONS release.

1.2 Burglaries

According to police recorded crime data, there were 192,060 residential burglaries reported in the year ending March 2022. This represented a 2% decrease on the previous year. The number of reported residential burglaries in the year ending March 2018 was 309,866. This shows a 38% decrease across that five-year period.

The ONS explained that police recorded crime data gives a reliable indication of residential burglary rates. Overall burglary rates (including burglaries affecting businesses) may be less reliable from police recorded data. However, for comparison, the total number of reported burglaries dropped from 437,718 to 266,283 across the same five-year period (a decrease of 39%).

2. Measuring gang activity

As explained in a BBC article in 2019, it is hard to estimate the number of people in gangs. This is due to different definitions of what constitutes a ‘gang’ and gang involvement being hidden.

However, the article did quote estimates by the Children’s Commissioner, based on crime survey data, which indicated there could be around 27,000 children in gangs at that time. The Children’s Commissioner also estimated that:

  • 60,000 children may self-identify as a gang member or know a gang member who is a sibling
  • 300,000 children may know a gang member
  • 34,000 children may know a gang member and have been a victim of violence in the previous 12 months

The BBC article also noted that gangs are often associated with knife crime and drugs. Brief statistics on the prevalence of knife crime are presented above, and further details can be found in the House of Commons Library briefing ‘Knife crime statistics’ (30 September 2021).

Gang involvement with drugs is often through ‘county lines’ activities. The National Crime Agency (NCA) explains:

County lines is where illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries (although not exclusively), usually by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by gangs. The ‘county line’ is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs. Importing areas (areas where the drugs are taken to) are reporting increased levels of violence and weapons-related crimes as a result of this trend.

In 2019, the NCA estimated there were over 2,000 individual county lines in operation. It said:

These deal lines are controlled by criminal networks based primarily in urban hubs and facilitate the direct purchase of illicit drugs, primarily class A (crack cocaine and heroin), by drug users in smaller towns and rural areas.

However, the NCA provided revised estimates in April 2021, saying the number of county lines operational at any one time may have reduced to around 600. It put this decrease down to increased operational activity and new guidance to tackle the issue. It stated that the top three exporting areas were London, Liverpool and Birmingham and that these three police force areas accounted for “approximately 80% of all lines when the origin of the line is known”.

The NCA also reported on the links between county lines and serious violence, stating:

Violence is a key component in county lines and is used by gangs, drug networks and organised crime groups to maintain control. It is used to ensure no competitors take over their lucrative business. Most of these groups have territory within their home forces and violence will erupt either within that territory or at the other end of the county line, within the importing force.

3. Government strategy to tackle crime and gang activity

In October 2021, Boris Johnson’s government published its ‘Beating crime plan’. The plan included details on current and new measures to tackle serious violence and neighbourhood crimes (including burglaries). It explained that these were being targeted, as much of this crime was concentrated among certain areas or people:

Homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime are concentrated around ‘hotspots’. They are often driven by drugs, and disproportionately involve repeat offenders:

drug addicts commit 45% of acquisitive crime (excluding fraud)

in the year ending March 2020, 48% of homicides were drug related

[…]

At the heart of our strategy to reduce homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime are targeted interventions to address places, people, and criminal enterprises, underpinned by excellence in the basics.

Measures outlined in the paper included:

  • funding and support to help forces recruit 20,000 extra police officers by March 2023
  • reconnecting the police with the public; for example, giving the public digital access to the police through a national online platform
  • targeted interventions and investments to support young people at risk of serious violence
  • expanding the use of electronic monitoring for “serious acquisitive offenders” to a further 13 police force areas to better support police and probation services to reduce this type of reoffending
  • empowering the police to take more knives off the streets by increasing their stop and search powers (see, for example: Home Office, ‘Home Secretary backs police to increase stop and search’ (May 2022))
  • investing to expand Project Adder, a programme which aims to ensure offenders have better access to drug treatment and recovery services
  • legislating for the new serious violence duty (now contained in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022), requiring local bodies (for example police, local authorities and health authorities) to work together on analysing and implementing strategies to reduce serious violence in a certain area

The paper also highlighted continued government investment in the Safer Streets Fund and violence reduction units. The Safer Streets Fund provides funding for improvements to be made to areas aimed at reducing the chance of crime. For example, the plan stated:

That money has helped areas remove the opportunities to commit crime by introducing more alley gates, CCTV, streetlights and home security. Money provided to areas participating in the programme has helped make places and homes more secure, removing the opportunity for offenders to commit crime.

Violence reduction units (VRUs) are run by police forces in areas where high levels of serious violence have been reported. The aim of a VRU is to lead a multi-agency/public health approach to tackle serious violence and its root causes. It should include specific interventions targeted at communities and young people (those aged under 25). The scheme is sponsored by the Home Office, which has set out three outcomes each VRU is measured against:

  • reduction in hospital admissions for assaults with a knife or sharp object and especially among victims aged under 25
  • reduction in knife-enabled serious violence and especially among victims aged under 25
  • reduction in all non-domestic homicides and especially among victims aged under 25 involving knives

Full details on the government’s proposed measures to tackle neighbourhood and violent crime are set out in section two of the ‘Beating crime plan’.

The government intends that its interventions, particularly those focused on drug use, will also help tackle the issue of county lines operations. However, it has also stressed the success of specific work and funding in this area. It has highlighted funding:

  • to expand the National County Lines Coordination Centre to improve intelligence and co-ordinate the national law enforcement response
  • for the Metropolitan Police Service, West Midlands Police and Merseyside Police, so that they can intensify their efforts to neutralise the major exporting drug dealing gangs, 80% of which come from those force areas

Subsequently, in April 2022 the government published its ‘10-year drugs plan’, which it also hoped would address the issue of crime and gang activity linked to drugs:

Our 10-year UK government plan to combat illegal drugs sets out how we are doing more than ever to cut off the supply of drugs by criminal gangs and give people with a drug addiction a route to a productive and drug-free life. Underpinned by record investment of over £3 billion in the next three years, we will reduce drug-related crime, death, harm and overall drug use.

The plan set out a range of measures across three strategic priorities, with each priority linked to a number of different government departments:

  • break drug supply chains (Home Office and Ministry of Justice)
  • deliver a world-class treatment and recovery system (Department of Health and Social Care, Ministry of Justice, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Department for Work and Pensions)
  • achieve a generational shift in demand for drugs (Home Office, Department for Education, Department of Health and Social Care, Ministry of Justice, Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

For example, the drug strategy committed to further investment in the government’s county lines programme.

It is currently unclear whether these policies will be backed and pursued by Liz Truss’s government. However, speaking at the Conservative Party conference on 4 October 2022, Home Secretary Suella Braverman did outline her backing for the 20,000 increase in police numbers and a return to “common sense policing”. For example, she said she expected all forces to properly investigate every neighbourhood crime. She also said she wanted to see a 20% fall in the rates of homicides, serious violence offences and neighbourhood crime.

On 5 October 2022, police chiefs in England and Wales pledged to send an officer to every report of domestic burglary. This was in recognition of reports of low charge rates and a belief that victims of burglary were not being given the “justice they deserve”.

4. Commentary

Speaking at the Labour Party conference on 27 September 2022, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper criticised the government’s record on serious crime. For example, she claimed that previous cuts to policing, courts and youth services had contributed to the rates of serious violence and lower charge rates. She said that Labour was committed to improving neighbourhood policing and standards:

Labour will take action to rebuild neighbourhood policing. I can announce today a fully funded £360 million programme to put 13,000 additional police and PCSOs [police community support officers] into community teams—so people can be confident someone will be there to help keep them safe.

Labour will strengthen police standards—overhauling training, vetting and misconduct procedures.

The point about previous cuts in policing was also raised by the national vice-chair of the Police Federation, Ché Donald, in February 2022. In addition, he highlighted other connected issues, such as pay and pensions, workloads and the difficulty training up new recruits. He said:

Should the 20,000 [extra police officers] target be achieved by March 2023, this would take us back to roughly where the numbers were in 2010. Since 2012 the population has grown by at least 4 million, and this demonstrates recruitment levels have not kept pace with an expanding population, which evidently puts the public at risk.

While this increase in officer numbers is desperately needed and something the PFEW [Police Federation of England and Wales] has lobbied the government for over many years, the reckless cuts made during austerity have resulted in rising levels of crime. In addition, we are seeing this pressure disillusion colleagues with years of experience, driving them to leave the service due to pay and morale issues and the devastating impact of unfair and discriminatory pension changes.

A recent PFEW leavers’ survey of more than 2,000 officers who resigned revealed 59 percent said the impact of the job on their psychological health had a major effect on their decision, while a quarter of all respondents said workload was a factor. Almost a fifth said pension changes were an influential reason in their decision to leave, while 30 percent said the erosion of basic pay in recent years was another contributing factor.

With so many experienced police officers leaving at the same time, many new recruits face inadequate training, and this poses a real risk to officer safety. There are simply not enough experienced line managers to cope with the influx of new recruits and the retention of officers of all ranks is imperative. Retention is as important as recruitment.

Mr Donald called for a longer-term strategy on police funding and recruitment to alleviate these issues. However, he also recognised the need for more consistency across police forces in how they meet best practice.

Turning to county lines, the National Youth Agency charity warned in a report in March 2021 that even if the numbers seem to be decreasing, this can just mean that county line activity is more hidden than before. It highlighted the use of social media to groom young people and gangs’ focus on recruiting those who are vulnerable.

It recommended the following measures involving youth services to help tackle the issue:

  • a high-level government strategy for youth workforce development, to recruit, train and deploy 10,000 full-time equivalent, qualified youth workers alongside targets for 20,000 police officers
  • government guidance and a clear plan for detached outreach and digitised youth work, with ring-fenced funding, in support of vulnerable young people in county towns and rural areas
  • VRUs to embed youth services in a public health approach for county lines, with significant investment in training youth workers, including safeguarding
  • cross-boundary co-ordination between youth services, not simply a policing or social care response, building the capacity of youth and community groups for in-county support

5. Read more

Cover image by Nikolay Dimitrov on Unsplash.