Crime in London, United Kingdom

I’ve lived and worked in London for nearly 20 years and have always felt very safe. The only time I’ve ever been a victim of violent crime was an altercation with some drunken football fans from another UK city after a match.

Clearly there are gangs in London, as in any city, but I’ve never come across any of them despite spending most of my time in Southwark and Tower Hamlets.

The other day my cousin got stabbed in the shoulder so this gang of youths could steal his wristwatch which was worth about 4 grand, it didn’t even reach headlines and the police have been useless with this situation, do not recommend but this mainly applies to south and east London areas where it is REALLY bad.

London has shocking levels of violence and crime, not far behind are birmingham then Manchester Liverpool and Glasgow. They don't have high homicide rates but general violence is shocking. London has just gone to the dogs in the last 30 years and in the last 5 murder has risen steady and this is with the mets dodgy numbers ie the police stopped reporting crime under the Khan because..... Yeah don't like the numbers don't keep count Khan is a corrupt little sht

Honestly I think some of the negative comments about London may be Racist British, Rough British Blokes that want to make London a tough city, or Americans that want to make London look bad and dangerous so they can Brag America is safer.

London, Paris and Malmo, three European cities that were once good which are now dangerous.

Homicide is higher than stats say but the main issue is assault and stealing, it’s very common, so not recommend London as a place to live due to it’s unsafety.

Tourist attracted London is very safe.. The reason they have a high crime rate is generally because it being a big city but also that every other place in london (north, south, east, west) are gang and drug hubs

People who say it’s safe live in the posh parts like Kensington. They don’t go anywhere near south and east London, crime rate is very high, murder rate is lower than some other parts of the country but it’s a lot higher than it says. But, London is a good place to visit, wouldn’t recommend living there though, look at living in Hertfordshire if you want to live around this area. Traffic can also be a NIGHTMARE.

London people wanna be so tough, saying its a stabbing every 14sec lmaooooo do people know How much That’s in a year? Way way over 1million with less then 1.50 homicide rate. Its sad How people want London to be bad When its not its a paradise compare to were Am frm smh the lies and bs London its very very safe

@yung boss money, such stupid comment. London among the most dangerous cities in Europe. People getting stabbed, mugged on daily basis

London sucks, American tourist here, centre is fine but the suburbs are bad. London has a lower murder rate than LA but a higher crime rate. I still enjoyed my visit though because I stayed within the main areas.

“According to a recent United Nations report, Britain has become one of the most violent industrial nation, the chances of being mugged and assaulted here are almost higher than in the US.”
That was back in 2008, and since then it’s gotten a fair bit worse (in London anyways)
Source for proof https://youtu.be/4YH0LUt8R2k

As far as capital cities go, it's very safe if you practice common sense. Don't go to rough neighbourhoods, don't look for drugs, try and avoid walking alone through unlit areas at night... you know, generic advice they give about everywhere.

I've lived here for a decade and the worst that's personally happened to me is someone going through my bag at a hostel I was staying at. And that guy was a tourist.

As with every city in the world, you can find scary stories about crime there that reach the newspapers. But in reality you would have to be desperately unlucky for any of it to happen to you.

Can FEEL safe but actually there are a lot of bad people about. If you ever see two guys on a moped, get offside quickly. Similarly with groups of badly dressed youths.

Thank you Sir for your comment. But I'm keen to complete the summary by the fact, that the UK is much more closer to the US in many things, than compared to continental europe. In terms of crime too. The types of crime and problems with crime are similar. Knife crime for example is often linked with gangs. Gangs are often coupled with drugs, where there is a high demand among the population. But there are some seriously mental ill, low life young teenagers, who treat this as a fun and game to take someones life. And so the other young majority, out of fear, carry weapons to protect themselfs. A simple argument or the lost of temper or even looking for someone in a bad way, can lead to the lost of a live. If you look at it from objective point of view, this is totally mad. The fact that the police is seen as a enemy, by thugs and some parts of the community is frightening. All this is more like in the US. The Government fails to tackle crime and the violence, just like poverty. Instead the understaffed police force which are treathened by further cuts, takes the fight against crime, sometimes with youths who commit crime because they are bored. A Crime & Punishment system is meant to lock the criminals away for a long time, not to let them go by the judges or treat them with a soft approach. So crime has established and it is treated as a part of live, a circumstance. It happens, because there is no fear of the law for some lawless and ruthless gangsters. The longer this status will last, the more impossible it will be to combat this disease effectively. But the Government seems to have other problems, only the News like on the Telly try to understand whats going on,if it gets bad. Crime will always be a part of a city. There is no big city without crime. But teenager which are so brutal,ruthless, coming from poor broken families, disrespectful, with no regard of human live or someones property, clearly living in a parallel world in one society is deeply worrying. If future Tourists read this(when traveling will be possible again):It is unlikely that you will be caught up with this problem in the City Center. If you dont have to, then dont go to the poorer Areas of the City, especially not in the night time. But if you need to, then better take the public transport or a cab. London is not only full of people drinking tea at afternoon or Mr Beans riding their Sofas on a Mini looking grim at you or hiding for fun in Postboxes. Unfortunately this City has some serious crime problem. Dont think that the police will come fast to you, when your handbag get snatched or by minor crimes.They struggle already with the amount of major crimes. Keep always an eye on your belongings. London is still very enjoyable big city and one of its kind on earth. I hope a new mayor will change things and bring the city to the former glory.

As I see, a lot of people like to compare London to the much loved and adored US. But do you really want to compare to cities which doing worse to feel better? The crimes committed in London are similiar, if not even worse. London reached the homicide rate of NYC in march 2019. Of course London is a safe city compared to South American Cities or Tijuana or Chicago. But in Europe, not European Union, the UK is a high crime country,whats seems normal today. Gun crime is getting worse significantly. The knife crime epidemic goes on over years now and continoue to reach new high levels. It feels like nearly everyday someone loses a life in London to knife crime, not only gang members. Most of it is gang related between black young men. But the crime is getting out of control over the past 6 years. And the worst part is, it can happen to everybody, because crime is also committed on random people of the public. Acid attacks, moped crimes in broad daylight in front of dozens of people, postcode wars (mistaken identity), you have to keep your car always locked when driving, brutal home invasions. Burglaries. Drive by shootings and gun shoots fired on random people or houses. Cars stolen for joyriding and crashed and torched, and more. If this happens to random people, by just being in the wrong place, wrong time, thats not safe at all. You just need to read the News. Police isnt catching all the criminals, because there is too much crime for those police officers. Prisons are the next, even more severe and completly overcrowded problem. But most importantly, this comes from a broken society, full of selfish people, dont looking at others. Poverty which getting worse too (what a suprise). No perspectives for young men. Everywhere they building new posh high rise buildings in London, ruining the skyline, just to allocate the money from the rich, ending up the poorer people earning enough, but not enough for London prices. Dont get me wrong, i love London as a city, but it really lost the charme. Its not the end of the world, you can get out on the street, but just be careful, vigilant and better dont go out after dark. Its just not a safe city. Other UK Cities have much more problems with crime by less inhabitans. And if anyone comes here with racism, if you go up north the country, you will find native young british lads, doing the same crimes. Its a social,poverty problem, created by the attitude of the poorly educated minds, not only imported by migrants.

After many years spent here in London I can say this place really pissed me. It has become a trashold, glad they close borders now cause it got outhand. Worst of all are the groups of young lads mainly afro brit who seriously go around to look for problems so keep away from this crap

I was mugged yesterday, a group of young lads came up to me with switchblades and took my money. Wouldn’t recommend unless you live in a area that’s nice.

A lot of London crime isn’t even noted down so saying Amsterdam is safer is very misleading

Murder rate in London is only 1.3. Much better than Berlin = 2.6 , Amsterdam= 2.3 and many other european cities.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London#Gun_and_knife_crime

https://www.foxnews.com/world/top-10-deadliest-european-cities

I don’t live in either places but I felt safer in New York City than London. I was harassed a lot in London and even threatened. Maybe it’s just my experience but I feel like New York City is a bit safer.

It’s honestly getting out of hand, I’m starting to scary scary crime on a regular basis now. Even as simply walking to the shop I see fights and people threatening to use knifes.

I went to Hackney area for a job and saw a stabbing between 5 young men. Not very nice. London has been going downhill fast unfortunately.

Nah you lot are kids, London is trash. As a 43 year old man who has lived in London all his life, I can tell you that for the past 7 years this place has turned into a dump filled with crime. So stop giving false information and shush.

Also this guy just makes fake accounts to make bad cities look good so honestly just ignore him

lol, mans never been to the ends. I swear down if u man came to the ends of London u fam would get sorted easy. Keep running around the city saying it’s safe and some man might sort u out.

Ok, how did the crime index go down and the contributers go down by like 30? It’s almost like they have an agenda. Honestly I thinks London actual crime index should be 60.

London is so bad for real, i've visited lots of cities in europe and north america. London is one of the worst. Not the worst but one of the worst.

London is much safer than cities like Seattle, Paris, NYC, Toronto, El Paso, not even close to comparable to cities such as St Louis, Baltimore.
Chicago has more homicides than all of England.

Facts. People act like London is comparable to NYC, Toronto Detroit, Winnipeg, St Louis or Baltimore. Our homicide rate is literally 1.5 per 100,000, more than safe than even "safe" American and Canadian cities

Visited from Ottawa Ontario, when I went to London many of the people there were very rude and I saw lots of drug dealers and even noticed some people carrying knives. And apparently knife crime happens a lot there according to the people I spoke to. I didn’t exactly feel safe. I would say that Toronto and even Winnipeg are safer than London through what I witnessed.

My mum lives in Toronto and my dad lives in south London. I spend 8 months in Toronto and 4 months in London. And I can tell you that London is way worse. Toronto has its problems of course but London is terrible. My dad has been stabbed once by a man in a black ski mask. People here are not nice and the police are a complete joke. The crime and homicide rate is worse in London and I do not feel safe at all. Thankfully my dad should be moving to Cardiff soon. My recommendation to people is don’t live in London as there is nothing going for it and it’s on the way to becoming like Chicago or Detroit. If you come here for a visit then you should be ok if you stay in the safe areas and know what you are doing.

Safer than Toronto, NYC, San Jose. I think we're doing fine.
Our homicide rate is literally 1/3 of NYC AND Toronto, let's praise our city for once instead of making it seem like a Baltimore or Detroit or Winnipeg. Even Paris is doing worse then us.

Lived in Winnipeg,moved to London 5 years ago. You guys are exaggerating, London is EXTREMELY safe for a city of its size, and nothing compared to the crime in my hometown

London is one of the safest cities in the world, most people are exaggerating. It's safer than both New York City and Toronto.

London 2017 homicide rate: 1.3
Munich 2017 homicide rate: 1.7

You all exaggerate London crimes because you feel intimidated by foreign people.

I do a lot of walking around London, Ive been ok, probably more crooks about at night, I wouldn't walk around alone at night, anywhere in Northern Europe! it isn't that much different to any town or city in England. Id say most of the crimes in the world are young males who have a reckless view of life. Gangs are everywhere in any town or city in the world.
Type in Google : least corrupt countries in the world : the UK IS IN THE TOP 12 LEAST CORRUPT!!!
Corruption leads to crime.

I believe that London is not very safe, but I don't believe that it has more crime than Paris!

I was there with my two girl friends (we’re all 20) in December. We experienced a LOT of harassment going out at night. Even in very busy tourist filled areas, men would come close to us asking us questions like “where are you going? What are you doing?” We would avoid them and try to dodge around them but they followed and whenever we tried to tell them to go away they would start getting angry and begin insulting us, “you’re all fat and ugly anyways!” It was very uncomfortable and unfortunate. My friend was also pressed up against a wall when leaving a bar by two British men. When she pushed them away and started walking away they too began berating her with insults about her looks and weight.

@AlwaysCurious The area around Kings College is quite safe during the day as it's very central and very touristic. It also has good communications with tubes, buses and cabs passing all the time. Walking at night alone in Central London I think is quite safe but it's a matter of luck that you could find a problem with someone like in any other city in the world, like being robbed or something else but as I said it's very touristic and populated so it shouldn't be any problem.