Last Updated on January 2, 2020
In 2019, London experienced its highest number of murders in a decade, in part, due to a rise in gang-related crime.
There were 149 murders–a little fewer than one every two days–in the capital city last year, up from 135 in 2018.
The number of murders increased by more than 50% in the previous decade, rising from 94 cases in 2014.
90 of the 149 murders were stabbings.
The youngest gang-related victim was a 14-year-old boy who was stabbed nine times by a rival gang in East London.
The youngest victim was the unborn baby of a heavily pregnant woman, who tragically passed away days after his mother, 26, was brutally stabbed to death at her home.
According to The Guardian, murders linked to gang violence more than doubled in the last 5 years: from 17 in 2014, to 44 in 2018, and 42 in 2019–indicating a politically incorrect problem given the growing prevalence in gang-related crime committed by individuals of African or Caribbean heritage.
Global Policing professor, Ben Bradford, remarking on the rise in London murders, said:
The top two or three explanations have something to do with [firstly] trends in the drugs market – there has been an increase in competition. There is definitely something going on around 10 years of austerity. It can’t be a coincidence that the generation of boys who were eight, nine or 10 in 2010 is coming to fruition after cuts.
There is a group of young people who are just more ready to use knives then they would’ve been in the past. There is anecdotal evidence of people carrying to protect themselves. We need to look at the demographic of the individuals and the areas they come from. It is telling that certain parts of London, certain neighborhoods, have been more prone to violence. They are poor, neglected and left behind.
At one point, gang and knife related crime had become so dangerous in parts of London, family members of Somali origin would send their young male relatives back to Mogadishu to avoid violent crime, according to another piece from The Guardian.
The Islington deputy mayor spoke about how East African families would send boys back home, saying, “Sending them away has become the only way they can be safer.”
He continued, “This issue of safety has been repeatedly raised by the community but nobody has listened. So many children have gone abroad.”
“Two weeks ago, there was a stabbing and a child was taken back home two days later.”
One of the things blamed for the rise in the United Kingdom’s gang culture has been the middle class’s rising demand for recreational drugs, such as cocaine.
Weaved into this narrative has been the Conservative Party’s “austerity” measures, cutting public spending in certain areas, with left leaning Brits blaming government spending reduction for the crime.
Britain has also experienced massive waves of immigrants over the last decade.
