Every murder is a tragic human story. The only figure that really counts to the family of a victim is the one murder that has impacted their life. One murder is one too many.
However, for a city with more than eight million people and a murder rate running at a fraction of most other major world capitals, we have a duty to provide context over major safety issues that would rightly concern residents and visitors to London.
The 113 murders in the capital reported by the figures for the 12 months to September 2015 – is an increase on the 99 the year before. Of course the Metropolitan Police Service is concerned by this. However, historically this figure is still low. As recently as 2008, there were 150 murders in London. Last year still stands as one of the lowest on record over the past 40 years.
It has been suggested that a rise in murders is a result of the reduction in homicide detectives. Murders do not occur, nor are they prevented in proportion to the resources a force dedicates to detect them – except in the very rare cases of repeat offenders. The numbers of homicide detectives has simply reflected the fall in the numbers of murders over the past decade – it really is that simple.
Our detection rate for murder is exceptional – solving around 95 of every 100 murders – a rate other capital cities look at with envy.
Similarly to suggest that the increase in murders in London is in someway driving the national increase is statistically wrong. London’s 14 per cent rise reflects a national increase but it is not contributing disproportionately to it.
Police action and deployment can impact on murders when it is targeted at prevention and disruption, particularly in the case of gang crime. Far from backing away from gang crime the Met has dedicated more than 1,000 officers to targeted gang activity.
Trident which, despite some reports, has not been disbanded, concentrates on locking up and otherwise disrupting violent gang members before they graduate to the most serious crimes. Gang members locked up or subject to judicial orders stands at 1,700 – a record number.
This works alongside other prevention work including a gun amnesty, knife crime operations and work around domestic abuse.
It is also suggested that the increase in murders is down to concentrating on other inquiries such as those involving journalists. Notwithstanding the lack of a logical link between detective deployment and murder rates, it is a fact that over the last year the numbers on these investigations have been reducing.
It is true that there has been an increase in sexual offences reported to the Met – most of those are contemporary rather than historic – but in either case, we have a duty to investigate these allegations thoroughly and that does mean devoting detectives’ time to doing so. Despite this shift we have maintained our very high murder detection rate.
An increase in murders is, of course, a cause for concern and that is one reason the Metropolitan Police Service spoke proactively about these increases in December before the release of national figures yesterday. We continually look at trends and work on understanding what is causing any increases and how we can best tackle this.
As we have said, one murder is one too many and we will continue to do everything we can to make London the safest city in the world.