MPA: London crime figures continue to fall

Commenting on the Met's annual crime figures, MPA Vice Chair Kit Malthouse said:

"These latest crime figures are good news for Londoners. I want to commend the Met for its determination in tackling those offences of most concern to our communities, in particular street crime and violence, with crime in London now at its lowest level for ten years.

"The success reflected in the figures is the direct result of the unstinting efforts put in by police officers and staff across London and anti-crime initiatives that we have worked hard with the Met to put in place.

"Overall, the reduction in crime is a positive achievement for the Met this year. Total recorded crime in London is down by 2.2%, 18,621 fewer crimes when comparing 2008/09 with 2007/08.

"Youth violence has also dropped, proving that the Blunt 2 strategy, which uses knife arches to detect whether people are carrying weapons, is working. There are 2,209 fewer victims of youth violence than last year. This figure also exceeds the target set for the Met by the MPA. The MPA sets deliberately tough, testing targets that will stretch the Met, but that we believe are fully achievable with a more focused and tightly defined use of intelligence-led policing together with more effective resource management.

"Most crime categories, apart from hate crime (including rape) and business crime, show a year on year reduction, with the overall sanction detection rate continuing to rise to 26.2%.

"Hate crime offences, domestic violence and recorded rape have all seen increases in crimes recorded by the police this year. It may be that increases in reported crime reflect increased confidence that the police will take such matters seriously, and the rise in sanction detections in this area though still at a low level, is encouraging.

"The increase in business crime reflects the growth of shop lifting offences and may be directly connected to the current economic situation in the capital.

"The MPA knows full well that there is still much work to do and we will continue to scrutinise progress to ensure the service provided to Londoners gets better year on year. The MPA and the Met will continue to work together to tackle criminality, achieve results and make London a safer city for all our communities. "

Notes to Editors
Total recorded crime in London is down by 2.2% or 18,621 fewer crimes when comparing 2008/09 with 2007/08. The number of recorded crimes remains under 900,000 for the second consecutive year.

With the exception of business crime, the majority of crime categories show a year on year reduction.

The overall sanction detection rate has continued to rise and stands at 26.2%. This shows a steady increase in sanction detections with the rate doubling in the last 5 years. Decreases in sanction detection rates are seen for serious acquisitive crime (-0.2 percentage points), residential burglary (-1.3 percentage points), business crime (-0.9 percentage points) and vehicle crime (-0.2 percentage points).