Why London’s lowest murder rate in more than a decade is drawing attention

How noteworthy are the homicide figures in London?

Accurate homicide data held by the Met goes back to 1997, and the total number of murders in London last year was 97, the second lowest on record.

The lowest was in 2014, when 95 homicides were recorded, but claims that last year’s total amounts to a record comes from the fact that the city’s population is estimated to be half a million bigger, at 9.09 million people. That gives a homicide rate of 1.07 per 100,000 people in 2025 versus 1.11 in 2014.

Murders of people aged 25 or under were down from 54 in 2019 to 18 last year. For teenagers it was down from 30 in 2021, to eight in 2025. Crime statistics are notorious for telling different stories but the sense of a drop of serious violence in the capital is bolstered by NHS data. Over the past five years the number of people admitted to hospital after being stabbed was down 29%, from 1,350 to 955.

In truth, crime figures can go up and down and the reasons usually elude those running the key parts of the criminal justice system.

What part have police played?

In an interview with the Guardian, the Met’s head of homicide, Commander Paul Brogden, says police had not simply “arrested their way” out of the problem.

One key development, says Brogden, is that in the last four years police have become better at exploiting data from mobile phones to know who the “bad people” are and who is associating with whom.

The Met would say its intelligence is better and it has become more focused, for instance homing in on drug dealers whose trade inherently relies on violence. More guns and knives have been seized. But policing tactics are enforcement, which are at best suppressive. Brogden is clear that preventive work has been key.

What part have others played?

The fall in homicides coincides with Khan setting up a violence reduction unit for the capital in 2019, loosely modelled on one established in Glasgow.

It worked to understand the causes of violence and repair some of the damaged social fabric that had been lost during austerity, such as youth workers who could talk to those engaged in violence to get them to change their path.

Some of the results claimed are staggering. Placing youth workers in police custody centres and talking to people as they faced charges had a 90% success rate in diverting them from further offending within 12 months of the intervention.

Why do some people claim London is lawless?

A longtime attack line against centre-left administrations is that they are soft on crime.

Khan won London’s mayoralty for Labour in 2016 and some of the claims are aimed at him. But for the radical right, London is seen as an example of a multicultural Britain, which they sense offers them political capital in attacking by claiming to be plagued by crime. Also more recently, the far right has tried to link ethnicity and immigration to crime to increase its political fortunes. More than than 40% of London’s residents are from minority ethnic backgrounds, according to the 2021 census.

Away from politics, people’s experience of crime is personal. The Met, while consistently solving homicides, does less well with other crimes that more people are likely to experience, such as robbery, burglary, and car theft.

What do the Met and mayor want?

Khan knows Reform UK is hoping to win councils in London in local elections in May with a key message that crime is out of control.

As a former human rights lawyer, he will see the homicide figures as a validation for a more thoughtful approach that works with communities rather than inflict coercive tactics such as wide-scale stop and search.

For Rowley, his force is only recently out of special measures for poor performance and faces a host of problems. He will hope the homicide figures help cement a sense that the scandal-hit Met is on its way back as a competent force, rather than a source of scandals.

But as ever, both are at the mercy of events.