Efforts to tackle serious violence and homicide stepped up
Public services will be legally bound to work together to tackle the root causes of violent crime, as government ramps up efforts to further drive down murder rates.
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The Serious Violence Duty will come into effect in January 2023, placing a new legal requirement on a range of public sector organisations to share information locally to reduce incidents of violence, like knife and gun crime, and prevent loss of life.
Guidance published today (16 December 2022) will support police, health, fire and rescue services, local government and criminal justice partners in meeting their responsibilities under the duty, outlining how they must collaborate to find and address the causes of serious violence in their communities.
The Home Secretary will be able to step in where public bodies are not delivering on their duty to work together and, where necessary, can issue directions compelling them to do more.
Early intervention and prevention lies at the heart of this ‘whole-system’ response.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman said:
Any life lost to violence will always be one too many. While knife crime is falling and gun crime in this country remains low, we simply cannot get complacent.
We know that the drivers behind such violence are complex and preventing further tragedy is the shared responsibility upon all in public service – not just the police. This new duty will see schools, hospitals and councils work together to intervene before devastation happens.
With strategies to cut violence prioritised in every local area and the recruitment of 20,000 additional police officers, we will keep our young people and our streets safe.
In tackling serious violence, duty holders should focus on public space youth violence, including knife and gun crime, and activities where threats of violence are commonplace, such as county lines. The duty has been introduced through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022), which was amended to also make clear that serious violence can include domestic abuse and sexual offences.
Each area will set their own definition of serious violence, based on what affects their communities. Police and Crime Commissioners will bring together relevant agencies, from law enforcement to local authorities, education, health and the voluntary sector, to create a strategy targeting their area’s specific needs.
The guidance has been published following a public consultation and engagement with public sector bodies, Violence Reduction Units and the voluntary sector in summer 2022.
To prevent more murders from being committed, a number of innovative projects have also been awarded a share of £1.8m of government funding over the next 2 years, including 5 nation-wide initiatives. This includes:
- The National Police Chiefs’ Council investing in new technology such as data mining, artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify and manage likely perpetrators of domestic abuse and knife crime. They will also create a knife crime co-ordinator role, to work directly with the Home Office and forces across the country, building a national picture on knife carrying and policing best practice in this area.
- The National Crime Agency driving behavioural science research on how to stop young people being drawn to homicide.
- The College of Policing analysing ‘near-misses’, including attempted murder. This will improve understanding of trends around homicide, by increasing the number of cases available for study. They will also replicate a project by Kent Police, where domestic abuse data is shared between accident and emergency departments and police to better identify and help those at risk of lethal violence.
The government has made £130m available this financial year (2022/2023) to tackle serious violence, including murder and knife crime, building on similar levels of investment in previous years.
The evidence shows that this whole system approach to tackling serious violence is working. Through police, government and community efforts to tackle the crime that hits our communities the hardest, since 2019:
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90,000 dangerous weapons have been taken off our streets.
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Over 49,000 violent offences prevented and 260,000 vulnerable young people have been supported through ‘hotspot policing’ tactics and Violence Reduction Units.
Also in early 2023, four police forces across the country will trial new powers to stop and search those convicted for knife crime or offensive weapon offences. Police, local authorities and public health bodies in three regions will also work together to review homicides involving offensive weapons, identifying where lessons can be learnt from these deaths. Pending successful pilots, both approaches would then be rolled out nation-wide.