to tell you violent crime in the UK is falling

I feel safe in my suburb, but going into town is another matter.

A few weeks ago a group of youths smashed their way into a jewller's shop with hammers in the middle of the day on the busy High St. Lots of comments on the fb news articles of "why didn't people stop filming and stop them?" Err because they're violent people armed with hammers and don't give a shit??? Who wants to risk having their head caved in?

This was very literally opposite the bank where less than 3 months ago a customer was murdered in a stabbing.

Our Police and Crime Commissioner is appealling to the Home Secretary for more support to manage the number of serious violent crimes in our county.

Barely a weekend goes by without some serious injury or fatal stabbing either in town or smaller towns around the surrounding area.

There may well be fewer (recorded?) brawl type incidents. Late night fights used to be common, but night life culture has quietened down in numbers. The incidents that occur and are recorded certainly include more serious assults.

Drugs are increasingly avaliable. This will affect people's reactions and self-control and its supply chain is a major source of crime anyway.

When I'm out and about in certain areas, I'm on high alert because of clusters of young men loitering, and drugs runners barrelling through on illegal electic bikes and e-scooters. (Plus the mass of businesses known to be fronts for money laundering on the High St). There are constant waves of the High St being filled with bored street drinkers/ drug addicts constantly spoiling for drama. I've been verbally abused on a few occasions for quietly ignoring and walking away when my presence had fallen under their radar. At least the "Spice Zombies" phase has passed, that was grim.

During a recent dinner conversation DH was surprised when DS casually said "yeah, I've seen people being arrested a few times". We'd just been going about our business in town.
A couple of years ago buying DS a school bag, someone came into the shop, grabbed an arm full of clothing from near the entrance and scarpered with £££s of stock. This is common through the shopping centre. The increase in second hand sales makes it easier to shift stolen goods, and has made the offences more serious in their scale.

Not local, but in one depressed seaside town, I've seen Lurpak in perspex security containers!

As a person living in a nice suburb and not engaged with any criminal contacts*, my chances of being a victim of (in person) crimes is probably fairly unchanged over the years. What does concern me is that if a random stranger crime does occur, the odds of them being high on drugs and armed with a knife designed to wound is higher than it used to be, with potentially more serious consequences.

But hey, at least "bleed kits" are getting more common to go with defribulators.

*I am not in touch with my former pupil who was convicted of murder (gang stabbing) a few years after I taught him.

Got to love the negativity here. Here's a simple fact. We live in the safest time in human history. I know horrendous events are occurring in Africa, the middle East and Ukraine. However, in the scope of human history you are less likely than ever before to be the victim of violent crime.
The UK and western Europe is probably at it's lowest people to people crime levels ever ie crime by direct theft from the person or property and yet people don't see this because of the fact that the media loves misery. Plus go back and watch how dreadful events were reported in the 70s and 80s and how they are now. With a 24 hour need to fill the news agenda were subjected to repeated doom and gloom far beyond what the story warrants.

What is this about? The UK’s ONS is trusted across the world for accuracy and impartiality and produces loads of data.

Perhaps the increase is due to a greater willingness to report rape or some change in the way police record it.

The reputation of the ONS is not very high at the moment.

@1diamondearing Still awaiting your answer?

Where is here, so it’s 40%?

Are they shit. You only need eyes in your head to see that that's patently not true.

I don't believe any of this! I've never heard anyone say in the last few years, what a relief the UK's crime has drastically come down, it's so much safer now!

As usual selective facts and figures can be presented to back up bias, so on that note how many illegal small boat crossing immigrants/asylum seekers were male and how many were female?

I bet you wont answer that will you 😂

No, it’s not falling, why would it?! It’s that police don’t get told, because they
seem to have stopped functioning.

Where? Back up the statistic please.

Well I live in --- and crime is very low and barely affects me, so therefore the data must be wrong. And actually the ONS must be over reporting crime such as iPhone theft, because I've never owned an iPhone and never had one stolen. Really can't believe that people believe these 'stats' around iPhone theft, not round my house I'll tell you that! They must be lying.

So London is bucking the trend? Why is our crime going up.

No, they aren’t here. It’s all young men, coming over with no paperwork.

OP who is committing the violent crime in London?

I think social media has massively increased people’s perceptions of crime in their area. Previously you‘d only hear about incidents affecting people you knew and friends of friends but now you hear about loads of things that you never would before. Probably also explains the conviction that London is a crime-ridden hellhole that pops up all over Facebook from people who never go there.
It is interesting to look at longer term trends. The homicide rate currently is similar to the 1970s and 80s having tracked up a bit in the 2000s (peaking the year they recorded all Harold Shipman‘s victims).
Violence is lower than the 90s, now 0.7 percent of people compared with 1.5% in 1990 for stranger attacks. There definitely used to be more pub violence and football violence which probably explains a lot of it.
Burglary has fallen because household goods are less valuable while phone theft has increased because there’s a market.

I was wondering about this in the UK, as I know it's the case the in the USA - prisons are facing massive drops in populationas long-term prisoners leave or die because there aren't more prisoners coming in to replace them. Far fewer young people are being arrested there

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/prisoner-populations-are-plummeting/683310/

eg 'In 2007, the imprisonment rate for 18- and 19-year-old men was more than five times that of men over the age of 64. But today, men in those normally crime-prone late-adolescent years are imprisoned at half the rate that senior citizens are today.'

Things like fewer young people hanging out together in public = fewer fights and violence, drop in alcohol and drug usage I don't think is mentioned by the article, but I am sure must have an affect. Stands to reason that similar might happen in the UK.

Youth serious violent crime has risen dramatically over the last few years.

Yeh the victim blaming is awful. It happens when people don’t have their phone out too.