Graph shows just how much lockdown impacted crime in London
Violent crime has increased in some areas in 2020
The UK is fast approaching one year since first entering lockdown on March 23, 2020. Lockdown changed life for millions overnight as Brits were forced to adjust to stay at home orders only leaving in the circumstance of shopping for essential items or exercise.
The various lockdown restrictions also overshadowed London crime, which has been dramatically increasing every year since 2014, but in 2020 saw a 17 per cent decrease according to latest figures from the Metropolitan Police.
Largely owing to lockdown, reported crime in London in 2020 was its lowest since 2016 coming off a 2019 year that saw the highest recorded number of crime in London in ten years.
There were 790,123 crimes committed in London 2020 and 921,211 crimes committed in 2019 — a 131,088 decrease.
Westminster, which was the London borough with the highest reported crime in 2020, has at times in the pandemic been described as a “ghost town.” Strict stay at home instructions has reduced the number of visitors and tourists coming to the area and therefore heavily contributed to reducing theft and violence in the area.
Croydon follows in second for the London borough with the most recorded crime in 2020 at 33,266 and the East London borough of Newham follows in third with 33,233 reported incidents.
Violence against the person was the highest reported crime in London with 173,491 incidents in 2020, decreasing from 222,048 incidents in 2019 — a 28 per cent reduction.
Knife crime not going away
A persistent issue that’s plagued London for many years is rising violent crime, particularly knife crime among London’s young people.
Although London saw an overall decrease in violence in 2020 compared to previous years, in the London boroughs historically hardest hit by gang violence and knife crime — violence against the person has stayed roughly the same and in some boroughs even increased.
Westminster, which led London boroughs in reported crime isn’t even in the top two boroughs for violence against the person.
In this category, Croydon led the way in 2020 with 10,864 reported incidents followed by Newham with 9,244 incidents in the same year. Shockingly, in a year that saw months of national lockdown, violence increased in Croydon by 11 per cent compared to the 2019. Violence was also roughly the same in Newham in 2020 with three more incidents reported than the year before.
Particularly high profile incidents of violence against a person in Croydon include the murder of Sergeant Matt Ratana shot dead at Croydon custody centre in September 2020 and also the murder of a 24-year-old hotel concierge, Tyler Rowe, who was stabbed to death in the South London borough over a second hand Gucci bag.
Regarding the increase in violence in London boroughs with historically high violence, Ms Martinale said she was not surprised.
She said: “It [violence] was already bad pre-COVID-19. I’m not justifying it but young people have been driven further into poverty with less opportunities and services they’ve had before are gone.
“They don’t want to be stuck sitting in their house. The message the government has given has been so weak, a lot of people don’t fear coronavirus.
“To see that a worldwide pandemic cannot decrease the violence in London, if people didn’t know how bad it is, they know now.”
On what can be done to tackle London’s prevalent violence issues, Ms Martindale said there is no quick fix, and the often suggested solution of increased stop and search won’t be enough.
With lockdown restrictions, many services provided by organisations such as Operation Shutdown, have been forced to move online where Ms Martindale said it’s harder to engage young people.
“The kids that are being killed are not involved in violence. A lot of them are young children,” Ms Martindale said.
She added: “Due to the mental health crisis that’s been underfunded it’s rare to meet a young person that hasn’t lost someone to violent crime. They haven’t had any step in and tell them things are going to be okay, so they end up not caring about who they hurt.
“This is just going to get worse. Lockdown has made everything there a lot worse. People are just deteriorating.”
