MPA chair welcomes latest crime figures - but still more to do

01/08
16 January 2008

Len Duvall, MPA chair, commenting on the latest London crime statistics released today, said:

"These figures show crime is going down in London. But even with this fall in figures we accept that Londoners are very concerned about crime in the capital and we must work harder to bring crime down further still.

"Throughout the 2007 calendar year there was a welcome downward trend across all crime categories, apart from gun-enabled crime. Rape and robbery are at their lowest level for nine years and murder for eight years.

"Crimes against the person, including rape, racism, homophobic and domestic violence, are all down compared to the previous year, but there is an element of under reporting in these categories. Although knife enabled crime fell by 13% this figure has to be seen in the light of very tragic incidents during 2007.

"There are no simple solutions to address violence among young people. But personally I do not believe that we should be tempted into gimmicky, knee-jerk responses to tragic incidents, particularly when tackling crime involving young people who are determined to harm each other. The MPA and the Met, along with our partners in the community, need to develop comprehensive strategies that effectively deal with this type of criminality.

"Strong partnerships are key to solving some of the long-term problems we face and it is good to see that the public and communities are responding to the investment we have made in neighbourhood policing. Safer Neighbourhoods teams are working together with our principal partners in local government and I want to thank our other partners and communities across London, all of whom reinforce successful policing. We are working hard with our partners to try to reduce crime in our communities. We must provide a service that is quick to respond to incidents as well as one that is developing longer-term problem solving initiatives to prevent crime.

"We want to see continued, significant progress and even better results in the future. But in the meantime, I commend our hard-working police officers and staff, and all those who support their efforts, for another successful year."

Notes to editors

1.Total notifiable offences in 2007 fell by 6.1 percent, resulting in 56,784 fewer offences recorded between January and December 2007 (876,298), compared with the same period in 2006 (933,082).

2. Recorded rape offences were down 14.6%, a fall of 345 recorded offences over the previous calendar year. Domestic violence, racist crime and homophobic crime were all down, collectively by more than 26%.

3. The overall sanction detection rate, which identifies those crimes where the offenders have been identified and dealt with, also increased from 20.5% to 24.1%, exceeding the 24% target set for the Met by the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA).

4. Gun enabled crime rose by 4% (132 offences), although there was no increase in the numbers of people killed by the use of firearms in crime during 2007.

5. Knife enabled crime fell by 13%, or 1,602 fewer offences in 2007, compared with 2006. In 2007 there were 10,699 reported knife enabled crimes, compared with 12,301 for 2006.

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