to tell you violent crime in the UK is falling

[1diamondearing]

violence is falling, robbery is falling, gun crime is falling, knife crime and sex crime is not significantly falling or rising, fraud is rising, shoplifting is rising

There is a good article in the FT called the Great Crime paradox. (Unfortunately behind a paywall) It explains that serious crime is falling but some very visible crimes such as shoplifting are rising so people's perception are skewed

It’s gone up massively. I used to walk around with my phone in my back pocket.

Now it’s this kind of excuse where criminals are expected because an item is worth a lot. Sod that.

Skewed or just a realistic take on their daily lives?

We’ve had three car thefts in our very residential street and even worse dc targeted with crime.

Well if we are quoting personal experiences. I know of no-one who has been the victim of theft or any sort of crime for years . I run our neighbourhood watch group for 100 houses and have not had a single incident in 5 years. Yet our facebook groups are full of suspicious white vans and people looking funny at dogs. We are in a very typical town in the SE of England

Because i live in England and i can see its gone up but police reporting and action taken has gone down? So many things have legitimately been decriminalised and decriminalised due to zero action taken that any data reports are biased in favour of the government

I dont either but I personally witnessed a (white if it matters) man being arrested with blood stained steak knives for domestic violence abh and other bits and bobs

A group of children some as young as ten gang up assault another young man (under 16) filmed it plastered it all over the Internet faces clearly visible because they knew nothing would be done (they were correct the police put out an appeal they have the evidence and nothing has been done)

Car thefts are up

Violence in general is up the police put out appeals people tell them that's on my camera and they never hear from the police again a local person after saving their footage for 6 months of the "serious incident" posted it on social media because the police were not interested and got into trouble the original incident has not been dealt with

And so it goes on

I suspect this is a case of “lies, damn lies and statistics”

Everything I see around me suggests otherwise.

The Crime Survey - its a face to face survey carried out in England and Wales covering theft, robbery, criminal damage, fraud, violence (with or without injury) etc. It is considered to be a reliable measure of crime trends.
You can read more about it on the ONS website.

My personal experience contradicts all the things you have posted OP.

The last two times I had to call the police, the first they never turned up and it turns out my crime number could not be found when i called to chase it up and the second they turned up and were so reluctant to even listen or act I ended up asking them to leave as they were not interested and were making every excuse unde the sun, not to do anything even with my CCTV footage of the damage to my property.

We’re in London so yes it’s probably different

You see this is terrible and I am really sorry the happened to your son. I have friends with teenagers in London who really worry for their children, and have heard of at least one teenager they know who has been stabbed. It is absolutely apalling and is definitely an area of crime that needs to be solved. Crimes on young teenagers (often boys though of course not exclusively) are an area that does seem to be out of control particualarly in larger cities, and particularly in London

I can really see how someone saying crime is down overall feels like someone is denying this experience and I don't think it is. In fact if crime is down overall across the country, this makes it even more important that this particular type of crime is dealt with and less excuse for it not to be.

I imagine that of they are true the statistics also refer to the easier to solve crimes which whilst could be some good news, in no way negates the fact that this area of crime definitely needs to be tackled

The Government data on this defiinitely suggests the numbers and rates of knife crime in London are up here - or at least were a couple of years ago https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04304/

Specifically this table (table 8 in a file which can be downloaded from the above link if you can't open the excel file below) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uxm_vTdVajMUc-avkp3ykc_xqTMEzIRL/edit?gid=1410319181#gid=1410319181&range=B2

This is only until 23/24 and only shows a year change between 22/23 and 23/24 but show a real rise in knife crime in different boroughs in ondon particularly in Richmond upon Thames (+c. 50% in both numbers and rate per 100,000 population) and Kingston upon Thames (+c38%) , though the numbers are still pretty low compared to other boroughs

The largest numbers are in Westminster, Lambeth and Southark, and Croydon. Croydon has seen quite a rise. They main thing though is the general increase across all boroughs. Except Islington which seems to have had a small decreasesurprisingly (-9%). The broughs with the largest numbers seem to have between 200-350 knife incidents per 100,000 population which is a tiny proportion but still way too high in my opinion

So the official data does show a real increase in knife crime in London.

Does that make you more or less likely to believe the other data from similar sources saying crime is down overall or do you only believe the numbers you agree with or that support the things that concern you?

My DS wasn't 'parading his iPhone' anywhere - it was in his pocket - but nice victim blaming there! These fucking thieves know that EVERYONE has a mobile phone. Yes, some people have them snatched out of their hands, but my DS and his friend were mugged on a tube train with two adult witnesses who didn't do a fucking thing. So all you saying 'Don't parade your thousands of pounds of electronics around then' are not just wrong, but you're ignorant of what is actually going on.

There’s more crime committed by foreign nationals than anyone else now.

DH said that there is minimum 40% of men needing a translator in the cells at any one time.

Mostly the cells are full of just foreign nationals. Their main crimes are sexual assault, ABH on eachother (lot and lots of fighting and stabbing in the migrant hotels), theft, criminal damage (smashing up the hotels) and drugs.

DH is a senior police officer in a large town in the midlands. He said there is not a single woman, child or older person in the 53 migrant hotels

Did I say that I believe crime nationally is up? No. I said there is no way to know because there is no credible source, I do not trust what these institutions say because of their internal incentive structures. These exist in academia also and uni was a fascinating insight into how this works. I left with far less trust than when I went in. I only said I'll believe what I see with my eyes and that is that crime has increased in my area. It without any doubt has. Where have I closed down arguments? Where did I say I believe nationwide crime is up based on Internet strangers? You're saying what I should have said, if you read back, you'll see that pretty much is what I said.

It's the OP that is making the certain pronouncements. I don't see you despairing at her for failing to say it's probably falling.

There have been 8 murders in the last year where I live within a 5 mile radius Including a complete random attack on a stranger. That feels somehow much worse because though sad all the others had links. I am not involved with the local drug scene for instance and a couple of those murders were related to it.

There has been loads of harassment in the street by the guys from the hotel with asylum seekers in that’s in my suburb, even I have been leered at and I’m not exactly young.

The amount of people openly smoking cannabis in the street has increased but the amount of actual hardcore drug addicts is through the roof. I’m getting really bored of liberal attitudes about how people like them have a tragic story they may do but when I go in to town I do not want a random crackhead wandering about being a bother. Some people just don’t bother going in to the city centre or certain areas anymore.

@pinkstripeycat thanks to your DH I’m also in the Midlands, it’s changed beyond recognition. We are thinking of moving. I’m actually bored of social problems spilling out on to the street while regular folk try and go about their business. It’s like all the little road men in balaclavas on their scooters, menace.

Where do you live then Op? some nice bit of rural Devon or Northumberland or maybe a cute little affluent market town.

My son was an officer too and yes, it’s all young men, all causing a lot of issues. My son actually left the force due to not being able or allowed to allowed police them. It was the final straw for him, having an 11 year old sister. Something happened to a girl her age and it was all swept away. That was his last straw with the force.

There is a charity made up of well meaning idiots near me who will not face facts and who collect women’s sanitary items, toys and children’s clothes to drop off to these hotels in our area. They will not hear that these women and children don’t exist. It’s mental. They drop it all off to bemused looking staff (because of course, they post it all on Facebook), and shut down anyone who dares tell them the truth.

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

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

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.

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.

because they are housed separately....

Inner London

OP who is committing the violent crime in London?

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