Violent crime in Britain has fallen substantially over the last decade but the country remains one of the least peaceful in Europe, according to a report published Wednesday.
The murder rate in Britain halved from 1.99 per 100,000 in 2003 to one per 100,000 in 2012 — its lowest level since 1978, according to a new “peace index”.
Violent crime fell over the same period from 1,255 to 933 per 100,000 people.
The increase makes Britain’s homicide rate “roughly equivalent” to the Western European average but higher than the overall EU average, according to the report by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a non-profit research organisation.
And the overall fall in crime was greater in Britain than in any other European country covered by the report.
However the nation still remains “one of the least peaceful in Western Europe”, ranking behind countries including Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, the study said.
The report identified a “substantial and sustained reduction” in direct violence in Britain in the last decade, and noted that “this trend does not seem to be abating”.
South East England is the most peaceful region in Britain, researchers found, with Broadland, in Norfolk the most peaceful area, in an analysis of local authorities, followed by Three Rivers in Hertfordshire, South Cambridgeshire and East Dorset.
Greater London was the least peaceful region, followed by Scotland and Northern Ireland, with peace defined as “the absence of violence or fear of violence”.
The least peaceful borough was Lewisham, followed by Lambeth, Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets, while Glasgow was the least peaceful urban area, ahead of inner London and Belfast.
“Despite the global financial crisis, violence has continued to decline in both the UK and Europe even during the ongoing recession,” the report said.
“In the UK, the only major offence category to substantially increase over the ten year period was drug offences. All other categories of crime, including burglary and fraud, have fallen.”
Researchers cited a fall in alcohol consumption, changes in police practices and a rise in incarceration among the factors which may have caused the downward trend.
However critics urged caution over the report, saying British crime figures spiked in 2003 — the first year of the analysis — owing to a change in the recording of crime.
The report also acknowledged that reporting methods “may slightly exaggerate the fall” in crime.
Prof Marian Fitzgerald, visiting professor of criminology at the University of Kent, said the report was based on “misconceptions”.
“It keeps saying ‘isn’t it amazing that despite the recession violence has gone down’. Actually, any serious criminologist knows that violence goes down in a recession because most violence is relatively low-level violence and most of it is associated with the late-night economy,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“So when people don’t have money to go out, get tanked up, start having fights, violence goes down.”
UK peace index shows fall in violence, murders
