Peter Henderson

Keir Irwin-Rogers and Luke Billingham’s book ‘Against Youth Violence’ has a nice summary of what we know about the nature of violence in England and Wales:

• Levels of violence in England and Wales have been declining since the mid-1990s: from over four million violent incidents in 1995 to just over one million incidents in 2020.
• Since 2015, offences involving the use of knives or sharp objects and hospital admissions for related injuries have increased. But the number of incidents is still lower than it was in the noughties.
• Most violence (over 80%) is committed by men.
• Most violence (c.70%) involves a single perpetrator.
• People over the age of 25 are responsible for a greater number of violent incidents than children and young people aged under 25. However, the rate of violent incidents (i.e. the number of violent incidents committed per 100 people) is higher for under-25s.
• Violence, especially when it involves a knife or sharp object, is concentrated in the big cities.
• The majority of violence in London doesn’t seem to be related to ‘gangs’. Just 2.5% of knife crime offences and 10% of homicides are flagged as being related to ‘gangs’. (However, it’s worth being conscious of the difficulty of defining what a gang is and knowing whether or not a violent incident is actually related to a gang.)
• Violence in London is generally concentrated in the most deprived boroughs and in the most deprived wards of these boroughs.