May 2014
Featured in this insight: Medical & healthcare, Education, Police, crime & community safety
Market research finds drop in violent crime: Research conducted by the Violence and Society Research Group at Cardiff University, shows that there were just fewer than 235,000 people who required hospital treatment after a violent incident in 2013, almost 33,000 fewer than in the previous twelve months. The total included an eighteen per cent drop in violence among youths.
The latest figures for London suggest that violence with injury was slightly up on last year with 852 more offences – an increase of 1.5 per cent. Police suspect this rise is down to domestic violence as opposed to street violence.
However, offences involving weapons reduced in the capital over the year with a fifth (17%) fewer gun-related crimes and a tenth (11.5%) fewer knife offences.
Professor Jonathan Shepherd, Director of the Violence and Society Research Group at Cardiff University, said:
“Violence is falling in many Western countries and we don’t know all the reasons why… In England and Wales, the growth of multi-agency violence prevention involving police, the NHS and local authorities may well be a factor - violence has fallen more in regions where this is best organised. Binge drinking has become less frequent, and the proportion of youth who don’t drink alcohol at all has risen sharply. Also, after decades in which alcohol has become more affordable, since 2008 it has become less affordable.”
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