The ‘murder rate’ is one way of measuring the effectiveness of the justice system. Another is the percentage of homicides that are ‘cleared up’ – otherwise known as the Sanction Detection Rate. This means cases where a suspect has been identified but not necessarily convicted of the crime, perhaps because they have been acquitted on …
Tag archives: Metropolitan Police
The London Homicide Manual
How do detectives investigate a murder? Books, TV programmes and documentaries give us some idea – even if their focus is on a single grizzled cop who solves a homicide single-handed. But what exactly is the ‘procedure’ when that call first comes in about a dead body? As it happens the Metropolitan Police have what …
Unsolved / Undetected Homicides 1999-2011
The Metropolitan Police have issued a list of 290 ‘undetected homicides’ going back to January 1999, following a Freedom of Information request. When people talk of unsolved murders we tend to think of classic fictional mysteries or the crimes of fiendish killers like ‘Jack the Ripper’. Deep down, of course, we realise that cases go …
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The Met’s Five Year List of Murders
The Metropolitan Police recently agreed to release details of all ‘murders’ (actually all homicides, including manslaughter) in the last five years following a Freedom of Information request. There are a few discrepancies with our own list of murders but these actually illuminate how the Met records each homicide. The Met already releases monthly totals and …
Teddy Highwood: Family of murder victim ‘failed by police and the IPCC’
Where do you go when you believe you have been failed by the police in their handling of a murder enquiry? This is the story of one family’s decision to complain to the Independent Complaints Commission. Seventy-nine year-old Teddy Highwood was bludgeoned to death at his home on July 17, 2009. His killer, 20 year-old …
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