London Passes NY in Murders, Despite Having No Guns

By Augustus Lancaster

The American metropolis with the highest population in America that saw Tammany Hall, race riots, mob empires, assassinations, bombings, serial killers, the crack epidemic, and 9/11 has just been upstaged by the city of Jack the Ripper and Fish n’ Chips. So far in 2018, 46 people in London have been fatally stabbed, shot or injured compared to 50 in the US city.

But, while New York’s rate month-on-month has decreased since January, London’s is on the rise. London saw 15 killings to New York’s 14 in February and 22 killings to 21 in March. Both cities have similarly sized populations of around 8.5 million people. New York City’s murder rate has decreased by around 87% since the 1990s. The total number of London murders, even excluding victims of terrorism, has risen by 38% since 2014.

London City Hall and the Met Police under the mayoralty of Sadiq Khan said that “They’re concerned about knife crime in the city, but London remains one of the safest in the world.” In January, the Met investigated eight murders whereas the NYPD looked into 18 killings. By February, the NYPD’s figures had dropped to 11, while London’s rose to 15. In March, 22 murders were investigated in London while 21 inquiries were launched in New York.

Both NYC and London have populations around 8.5 million, around 40,000 police officers, and both spend roughly the same amount per year on their police force (NYC: $5.6 billion. London: £3.24 billion or $4.5 billion American). Yet as The Big Apple has been decreasing in crime since Mayor Giuliani’s “get-tough” policies of police-reform in the 1990’s to focus more on smaller crime before it grew into the macro problems they were dealing with; London has been experiencing the opposite in a lot shorter amount of time.

It’s fair to note that the Met has faced £600 million in police cuts in the same amount of time the crime rate has risen to the levels it is at now. Burglary has shot through the roof at 70,000 instances last year, iPhone theft has highly contributed to the rising of robbery, rape has risen considerably at 7,613 reported rapes in the year, compared to 6,392 over the previous 12 months, according to figures collated by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). Rape is being reported 3 times more often in London than NYC.

Stabbings are the most common form of homicide with 4 teenagers being stabbed to death in London on New Year’s Eve alone, and 22 were killed in March. The US city had 21 killings in comparison. What is most concerning about these stabbings is the randomness they happen in spread out over the greater London area.

Eight Londoners, most of them under 30, were murdered in the six days between March 14 and March 20. Young Londoners have taken to carrying any means of defense they can when walking the streets practically in a state of emergency. A city that has not only disarmed its citizens and left their safety to the responsibility of the police, has ironically underfunded said police thus keeping them from doing their job.

The original mob bosses and crooked politicians of New York during Tammany Hall the Italian Mafia would welcome Sadiq Khan to the big-player’s table faster than Cenk Uyger drinks bacon grease.