Homicide in Britain

The homicide drop in England and Wales 2004–2014

“…To add to the complexity, the more recent increase in homicide in England and Wales, recorded between 2014 and 2018, challenges this and other dominant explanations of homicide decline. It also highlights the need to disaggregate homicide into subtypes – as Brookman (2005) and Brookman et al (2017) contends, different forms of homicide demand different explanations – and so do trends in particular subtypes. Although the absolute numbers and rates of knife-related homicide decreased substantially during the period of decline, the proportion of all homicides involving knives has increased.…”

“…The focus here is on understanding the recent decline in homicide in England and Wales in context with dominant theories on homicide decline, rather than explaining homicide per se. 2 Homicide numbers in England and Wales have historically been comparatively low and the homicide rate remains one of the lowest in the world (Brookman et al, 2017) -the most recent figures indicate a rate of 12 per million population 3 (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2019b). Nonetheless, overall trends in England and Wales have tracked closely alongside trends in other developed countries (Brookman et al, 2017;Eisner, 2001Eisner, , 2008Gurr, 1981;Soothill and Francis, 2012), steadily decreasing from the middle ages until the 1960s, before rising for approximately four decades before peaking in 2004 and subsequently declining until 2014.…”

“…2 Homicide numbers in England and Wales have historically been comparatively low and the homicide rate remains one of the lowest in the world (Brookman et al, 2017) -the most recent figures indicate a rate of 12 per million population 3 (Office for National Statistics (ONS), 2019b). Nonetheless, overall trends in England and Wales have tracked closely alongside trends in other developed countries (Brookman et al, 2017;Eisner, 2001Eisner, , 2008Gurr, 1981;Soothill and Francis, 2012), steadily decreasing from the middle ages until the 1960s, before rising for approximately four decades before peaking in 2004 and subsequently declining until 2014. The analysis below covers the period from 1 April 2003 (immediately prior to the peak in rates) to 31 March 2015, just after the rate had begun to rise again, at the same time as an upwards trend has been witnessed across many European countries (ONS, 2019b) and US states (Rosenfeld, 2016).…”

“… 2. For a full discussion of explanations of homicide in England and Wales, see Brookman (2005); Brookman et al (2017), and for overviews of the characteristics of homicide in England and Wales, see Brookman et al (2017) or Soothill and Francis (2012). …”

What Factors Influence Whether Homicide Cases Are Solved? Insights From Qualitative Research With Detectives in Great Britain and the United States

“…Roberts and Lyons (2011) found that homicides involving Hispanic victims were less likely to be solved than those with White or Black victims, while DeCarlo (2016) found that homicides of young African American males who lived in cities with high poverty were particularly unlikely to be solved. In Britain, homicides involving Black victims are less likely to be solved than those with White victims (Brookman, Jones, & Pike, 2017). Regarding other characteristics, Turner and Kosa (2003) found that immigrant, transient, homeless, or unidentified victims were overrepresented among cold cases in the United States (and hence likely to remain unsolved for many years).…”