Homicide victims in London in 2024

1. There’s a murder of a teenager missing from your 2024 list, an 18 year old was fatally stabbed in Laitwood Road, Balham on 28th October 2024.

   1. Thanks, have added.

2. Obviously the drug trade is the driver of most of these deaths. But the murder rate began to rise immediately after the death penalty was abolished in the Sixties. Our Governments will never bring it back because it is far far cheaper and a lot less trouble to bury people than to jail them with all that entails. Cheaper than deportation too. That applies to many of the victims and the perpetrators judging by their photographs.

3. Personally I think date of the attack (the crime) is more suitable than date of death when applying stats to each month.

   Some highly unusual deaths in July helping to boost the tally after a relatively low-tally for June.

   1. Fair point. We chose date of death as that’s when it becomes a murder/homicide but valid to say that attack date is most important. It’s relatively rare for them to be different dates.

4. The one thing that leaps off the screen when you read this list is how many of the victims – and even more of the killers – are either foreign nationals, or British from ethnic minorities. Until we all recognise and accept that however unpalatable it may be, there IS, we will make no progress towards solving it.

   1. First of all, when considering proportions of victims, we should be aware that London has far greater ethnic diversity than the rest of the country so perceptions or expectations may be skewed.

      For example, the 2021 Census found that 36.8% of London’s population identified as ‘White British’. The other percentages are Asian 20.7, White Other 17, Black 13.5, Other 6.7, Mixed 5.7. (see link for chart with comparison to other areas).

      This is an imperfect comparison using slightly different categories, but if we look at 21 years of police homicide data on ethnicity (total 2,912 victims from 2003 to 2023), we get White 46.5% (1,353), Black 36.1% (1,052), Asian 14.9% (435), Other/not known 2.5% (72).

      However these proportions change a lot depending on the age group – as you can see from the above Met Police dashboard by selecting the age range or the ethnicity.

      This issue hasn’t been ignored – the disproportionate number of black teenage victims, for example, has often been noted by the media/government/police. The debate surrounds the varying explanations/opinions about it, and how to tackle the disproportionality.

      Some examples of coverage in recent years:
      https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/black-people-murder-victims-london-b1828432.html
      https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/living-on-the-edge-the-real-reasons-why-black-boys-are-falling-to-violent-crime-in-london_uk_5c405edae4b0a8dbe16df465
      https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/cressida-dick-half-london-murder-victims-black-b935119.html

      1. Good points, thank you. Perhaps it might help to make the picture clearer if you were also able – when and if they’re found and convicted, of course – to name the murderers as well as the victims. I could be wrong, and am happily open to correction, but I suspect the percentage of black young men will be disproportionate there, too.

         1. We do attempt to update every case when someone is charged, or convicted and sentenced, or acquitted, but it can take more than a year for each case to go through the courts.

            The Met do have stats on suspects/murderers on their website: https://www.met.police.uk/sd/stats-and-data/met/homicide-dashboard/ (this link may change soon as the police are updating their stats page at the moment)

            Basically of the ‘people proceeded against’ (which includes dead suspects) for 2003 to 2023:

            Total: 4,514
            Asian 455 (10.1%)
            Black 1,895 (42.0%)
            Mixed 230 (5.1%)
            Other 167 (3.7%)
            White 1,355 (30.0%)
            Not recorded 93 (2.0%)
            Declined to say 319 (7.1%)

            Bear in mind this is how the suspect described themselves, whereas the victim ethnicity was ‘officer observed’ (i.e. chosen by the police), and the police obviously don’t identify/arrest/prosecute every suspect so it’s not going to provide a full picture of all killers.

            On that Met Police page you can also select age ranges, which demonstrates that of the suspects aged 15 to 19 (total 1,316), 58 per cent (765) were classed as black (for example)

      2. Well said, MM.
         Hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to steal your phrasing.

5. I came across a report of a man, 56, stabbed to death at a house in the London borough of Hackney. A woman, 42, was arrested on suspicion of murder (according to the report).
   I haven’t found much other information about that though.

   1. Will chase further details on that, as only reported online in the Evening Standard.

6. I’ve noticed that when London (and likely other cities) go for long periods without a homicide (by long, I mean 2 to 3 weeks), there’s *always* a cluster of homicide towards the end of the month, which puts paid to any chance of a remarkably low monthly tally. It’s almost like there’s an unstoppable force play that makes sure it doesn’t happen. Homicides that are unusual, like in the case or the arson death, or on the far reaches of the city, like the one on Harold Hill.

   1. That unstoppable force is called probability.

      1. Yes, you’re quite right.

   2. No incidents for a time followed by a cluster is exactly what you’d expect to happen. If there was a regular number of incidents each day or week, well, that would be very odd and suspicious indeed.

      1. Hi Andrew

         Yes, I know. It happens everywhere.
         I’m not really sure why I posted my comment in the first place.
         What i really wanted to say is that it’s disappointing when a month nearly finishes with an especially low tally only to be ruined by a flurry of homicides in the last few days. Not that dates matter because it’s about the yearly total.
         I went through every month over the last few years to see if more happened at the end of the month. They do seem to but nothing substantial.

         Back to your point; two homicides a week every week would yield the same annual total but it just doesn’t happen.

Comments are closed.