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<p>Data collected by police forces in England and Wales shows that there has been
an increase in rates of robbery, knife possession, offences with a knife or sharp
instrument and offences involving violence against an individual. See table below
for exact statistics:</p><table><tbody><tr><td colspan="4"><p><strong>Published data
- Selected violent offences<strong>[1]</strong> recorded by the police in England
and Wales:</strong></p></td><td colspan="2"><p>% change year to June 2019 compared
with:</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>England & Wales</strong></p></td><td><p>Year
to June 2010</p></td><td><p>Year to June 2018</p></td><td><p>Year to June 2019</p></td><td><p>Year
to June 2010</p></td><td><p>Year to Mar 2018</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Robbery</p></td><td><p>74,888</p></td><td><p>79,164</p></td><td><p>87,361</p></td><td><p>17</p></td><td><p>10</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Homicide</p></td><td><p>628</p></td><td><p>719</p></td><td><p>681</p></td><td><p><em>8</em></p></td><td><p><em>-5</em></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Knife
possessions</p></td><td><p>10,652</p></td><td><p>18,879</p></td><td><p>22,962</p></td><td><p>116</p></td><td><p>22</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Violence
against the person offences</p></td><td><p>693,632</p></td><td><p>1,469,727</p></td><td><p>1,655,146</p></td><td><p>139</p></td><td><p>13</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Offences
with a knife or sharp instrument excluding West Midlands, Sussex and Greater Manchester
Police[2] [3]</p></td><td><p>27,319</p></td><td><p>37,281</p></td><td><p>39,504</p></td><td><p>45</p></td><td><p>6</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>
</p></td><td><p> </p></td><td><p> </p></td><td><p> </p></td><td><p> </p></td><td><p>
</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p>[1] The selected offences are: homicide, attempted
murder, threats to kill, assault with intent to cause serious harm, assault with injury,
& robbery.</p><p>[2] West Midlands and Sussex police force included unbroken bottle
and glass offences in their returns prior to year ending March 2011 but have excluded
these offences in line with other forces since then. As such, they need to be excluded
when comparing with years prior to 2010/11.</p><p>[3] Data from Greater Manchester
Police are excluded. This force reviewed their recording of knife or sharp instrument
offences in December 2017. This revealed that they were under-counting these offences.
Following this review, there has been a sharp increase in the number of knife or sharp
instrument offences recorded by GMP in 2018 compared with previous years. Previous
data have not been revised and the data are therefore not comparable. Due to this,
data from GMP have been excluded from the table.</p><p>About half the rise in knife/gun
crime and robbery is thought to be due to improvements in police recording. However,
we know from our analysis of the drivers of serious violence that the drugs market
is also a major factor contributing to the increase in the rates of these crimes.</p><p>Violent
crime has a devastating impact on victims, families and the wider community. That
is why we are giving the police the resources and tools they need to keep families,
communities and our country safe; this includes recruiting 20,000 new police officers
and making it easier for them to use stop and search powers.</p><p>Funding for policing
is also increasing by £1 billion this year, including council tax and the £100million
Serious Violence Fund. This Fund is providing the critical investment needed in the
18 police forces worst affected by serious violence; such as providing £63.4 million
towards surge operational activity, such as increased patrols, and £1.6 million to
help improve the quality of data on serious violence, particularly knife crime, to
support planning and operations. £35 million was invested in Violence Reduction Units
(VRUs) which form a key component of our action to prevent violence by understanding
its root causes. A further £35 million has been announced for VRUs for 2020/21.</p><p>We
are also bringing forward the Serious Violence Bill which will aim to prevent and
reduce serious violence by creating a new duty (and extending an existing duty) on
public sector bodies to collaborate and plan with each other to prevent and reduce
serious violence.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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