Homicide: Method of killing in England and Wales 2019/20

Knives or other sharp objects were involved in 40 percent of homicides in England and Wales in 2019/20, the most of any method of killing. Homicides which involved hitting or kicking without a weapon made up 17 percent of murders, while strangulation was identified as the method in 11 percent of homicides.

Homicides rate highest in North West

The 809 homicides reported in 2019/20 was the highest number in England and Wales since 2008/09 when there were 787. Between 2011/12 and 2015/16 there were never more than 664 homicides in England and Wales, with 2013/14 having only 615 in total. The region with the highest homicide rate was the East of England, which had 16 murders per million population.

Overall knife crime on the rise

Like many other types of crime, knife crime offences in the 2010s started to decline at the start of the decade before creeping up again from 2014 onwards, reaching over 22.2 thousand offences by 2019. In London where much of the media’s attention on knife crime is focused, there were over 14.84 thousand knife crime offences alone in 2018/19.