£40 million strategy unveiled to tackle street killings as police claim majority of victims are suspects in other crimes

New strategy: Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced the plans at a conference in London
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Powerful evidence of how a cycle of violence is fuelling the surge in London killings emerged today as the Home Office revealed most of the homicide victims were previously known to police as suspects in other offences.

Statistics published in a new £40 million Serious Violence Strategy unveiled by Amber Rudd also show that three-quarters of murder suspects last year had been victims of crime.

The document – which sets out Ms Rudd’s blueprint for tackling knife and gun crime – further warns that a small “minority of chronic offenders” are responsible for a “large proportion” of violent crime.

It says that many are being drawn in by “risk” factors including low educational achievement, a “disrupted” family, and bad housing.

It also warns that recent rises in the number of children excluded from school or taken into care, as well as a growth in adult homelessness, could be linked to the increase in serious violence being experienced in the country. Ms Rudd said such findings — which follow the killing of more than 50 people in London this year, many in stabbings and shootings — highlighted the need for early intervention to “catch young people before they go down the wrong path”.

She also pledged a greater use of stop and search and “hot spot” policing, increased action against the “county lines” drug trade in which youngsters ferry illegal substances around the country, and more pressure on social media firms to stop gangs taunting each other online.

Her attempt to seize the initiative coincided, however, with the leak of separate Home Office research which suggests that a lack of resources and fewer charges might have “encouraged” offenders to commit crimes. The research, produced in February, adds that although not the “main driver” that “triggered the shift in serious violence”, it has “likely contributed”.

Labour, which has already blamed funding cuts for contributing to the rise in violence, seized on the finding as it stepped up its political assault on the Home Secretary.

But Ms Rudd angrily denied that lower police numbers were to blame for rising violent crime. She said: “This is a complex crime and you cannot arrest your way out of this. Forces with the biggest falls in numbers have not seen the biggest rise in crime. In 2008, when we saw the largest amount of knife crime in London, police numbers were at almost a record high. To say it’s about police numbers is a mistake, we’re not going to address the underlying problems and that’s what I’m interested in.”

Today’s new Home Office strategy says one potential cause for an increase in violent crime could “be an increase in the number of individuals who are most vulnerable.”

It says these include the numbers of children in care, those excluded from school, and the homeless. It also cites Met data showing that “of the 306 suspects named in 134 Met homicide investigations in 2017, 72 per cent had previously been a victim of crime, and 26 per cent a victim of knife crime.”

This “considerable overlap” between victims and offenders is also highlighted in the reverse direction with three-quarters of the 108 homicide victims also “known to the Met as a suspect in a criminal investigation.”

The strategy concludes that “socio-economic improvements” as well as strengthening ties to family and school can be key to reducing violence.

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