London Crime Statistics

When you’re thinking of moving to an area, checking local crime rates is one way of getting a feel for the place and the type of security you should consider. And they’ll impact your insurance premium, too. Here, we’ve compared rates and types of crime for London boroughs.

Quick overview

• Over 910,000 crimes reported across London between February 2018-2019
• Westminster have the highest crime count in London, with 71,034 reported crimes
• Reported crime up just 2.2% compared to this time last year, but is up 20% from 2014/15
• Crime Rate (per 1000 population) up from 99 to 102 compared to this time last year
• 41,000 knife crimes were reported across the UK in year ending March 2018

The latest facts and figures

London crime rate

There were over 910,000 reported crimes across all the London boroughs between February 2018 and February 2019. This is an increase of around 20,000 crimes to the previous year and a rise of 150,000 crime since 2014/15. Crime rate is calculated by crime per 1,000 population. Find how London’s crime rate has changed over the last five years below:

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Crime statistics by location

The levels of crime across London varies. Explore the graph below to see where the most crimes were reported.

Number of crimes by location in London boroughs

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Crime on the rise?

Is crime on the rise in London? We dived into the latest statistics to see how this year’s crime figures compared to the last five years.

Crime count percentage change over the last five years

Reported crime as a whole has increased by over 20% across London Boroughs over the last five years, from a crime count of 760,00 in February 2014/15 to a total of 913,000 in February 2018/19.

The area with the highest rise in crime is Westminster, with an increase of 35% in the last five years, followed by Haringey (32%), Kingston upon Thames (28%) and Bexley (28%). The lowest increases in crime came from Lambeth (7%), Croydon (10%) and Islington (10%).

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Changes in types of crime

While some offences fell in numbers, most of them rose. The most notable increases over the last year were robbery, burglary, and violence which each rose 4%. This is a dramatic slowdown in increases from the previous year (2017/18) where categories of crime, such as robbery increased as much as 39%.

Over the last five years, the categories of crime which have seen the biggest increases have been robberies (52%), sexual offences (43%) and violence (36%). However, there have also been categories of crime which have decreased, such as drugs (-20%) and criminal damage (-3%).

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Knife crime

Knife crime is defined as an offence involving the use of a knife or sharp instrument. Across the UK the number of crimes involving knives hit a eight year high in 2018 with over 40,000 reported incidents.

• 41,000 knife crimes were reported across the UK in the year ending March 2018 .
• This is 16% higher than in 2017.

London Knife crimes

• London accounted for 36% of knife crimes nationally.

The number of knife crimes peaked in 2011/12 with over 14,000 incidents. This number fell from here down to a recent low of 9,700 in 2014/15.

Since then, knife crime in the capital has been on the rise, reaching 14,700 in 2017/18 – the highest levels in over 10 years. Find out below which boroughs have the highest count of knife crimes:

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Moped crime

In London, moped crimes have risen in recent years, jumping from just 827 offences in 2012 to more than 23,000 in 2017.

• There were 827 reported moped offences in 2012.
• This increased to over 23,000 offences in 2017.
• In 5 years the amount of moped crimes has increased by 30 times.
• 40% of moped crime in London was in just 2 boroughs: Camden and Islington.
• One moped gang was recently jailed after a £1.3m robbery spree.

BBC
• Greater London Authority
• House of Commons
• MET Police

Click here for more research. For all media enquiries, please contact:

Matt Mckenna
UK Communications Manager
T: +44 20 8191 8806

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