The purpose of this Act is to help reduce violent crime. Serious violence consists of:
in addition to other offences such as acid attacks and county lines drug dealing.
After falling for a decade, homicide, knife crime and gun crime rose from year ending March 2014 to year ending March 2019, homicide by 27%, knife crime by 85%, and gun crime by 42% (note that part of the knife crime and gun crime increase was due to recording improvements). Robbery has risen by 80% from year ending March 2015 to year ending March 2019. These trends have stabilised from 2018/19, with the exception of knife crime which continued to rise prior to the pandemic.
