By Ashley Young-
London has been described as a “fantastically safe” city by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
His comments follow an announcement by the force that there had been a drop in homicide rates across the region last year, with the number of teenage killings dropping by 50 % last year. Killings among Britain’s teenagers are still rife, a high percentage occurring over drug related incidences, and others over street robbery associated with peer pressure and delinquent behaviour, also sheer immaturity connected to girls.
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Research also shows that a high level of mental health issues among teenagers plays a contributory role to the high level of killings among teens.
Rowley, who heads Britain’s biggest police force, said the capital is a place to “live, work and enjoy yourself” as he visited a boxing gym in Ilford, east London, on Thursday.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan joined the commissioner as they met Box Up Crime founder Stephen Addison, who set up the club to provide vulnerable young people with a community and a path away from crime.
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The visit comes as the force promised that it was cracking down on offences targeting youngsters, releasing figures which showed the number of teenage killings halved in 2022.
Sir Mark said: “London is a fantastically safe global city. Of course no city’s perfect, but if you look at crime rates… it’s a safe place to live and work and enjoy yourself.”
The commissioner was also pressed on his plan to root out criminal behaviour within the Met after a string of high-profile convictions of officers for serious offences.
He added: “I have got tens of thousands of men and women who are fantastic people, who care and want to make a difference.
“Sadly I’ve got hundreds I need to sort out and who shouldn’t be in the organisation and as we do that you’ll hear more.
“But I’ve got many, many more people who care about Londoners than some of those awful individuals that should never have been police officers.”
The Met has vowed to increase high-visibility patrols and boost community policing focused on preventing robbery after recent figures from Ilford showed 36% of mugging victims were aged 18 or younger.
It said there had been 71 arrests for robbery since November.
The total number of homicides recorded under Home Office Counting Rules (HOCR) for 2022 is 109, which is 17% down on 2021, the Met said.
Nine homicides were gun enabled in 2022, which was a 25% fall and the lowest figure since 2014.
A total of 69 homicides were knife enabled, which was a 17% reduction and equal to the pre-pandemic figure for 2019.
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