Yahoo Finance Scotland Yard taskforce chief fears violence will rise as lockdown lifted
The head of Scotland Yard’s violent crime taskforce has said he fears the easing of lockdown will lead to a rise in violence.
DCS Lee Hill told the Guardian: “As we start to come out of lockdown, we do anticipate there will be an increase in violence. There are a number of reasons, such as pent-up aggression. Where young people have been cooped up together, and as restrictions lift, people are more mobile.”
He said examples of this violence this month included clashes in Hyde Park and Greenwich between youths, some armed with machetes and knives.
Hill said: “People have been cooped up for long periods of time. [As restrictions lift] we have seen the coming together, and that can be a catalyst for violence. As the lifting of lockdown happened over the last few months, the opportunity to commit crime is more prevalent. We are starting to see that increase.”
He added that pockets of the capital were seeing more violence, but that the increase was not London-wide: “We are working hard to stabilise it as we come out of lockdown.”
But Hill said the levels of violence are still below where they were before the first lockdown in March 2020, with the unprecedented restrictions and order to stay home leading to big reductions in crime. “We have not seen the bounce-back effect. Figures have not increased to where they were before Covid.”
The statistics tell a complex tale. Knife crime offences are down by 24% compared with last year. Between January and May 2020 there were 5,033 knife offences. Over the same period this year, that figure was 3,845, according to the Met.
Hill said knife crime injury under 25, a “proxy measure” that the Met uses to gauge youth violence, had gone down over the last few months. Figures show that for the first five months of this year, knife injuries among those aged 25 or under were broadly stable at 462 incidents, up 2% compared with January to May 2020, when there were 451 recorded incidents.
The lifting of lockdown is only one factor that may shape violence: the other big element – some would say bigger – is the dynamics of the drug markets.
Asked whether loosening lockdown restrictions or changes in drugs markets would be a bigger factor in triggering violence, Hill said: “It is a combination of both. Lockdown will have a significant impact. Behind knife crime there are many different causes, particularly drugs markets. In deprived areas there are concentrations of knife offences.”
One senior police source said that across England and Wales, lower-level violence was expected to rise as the night-time economy, such as nightclubs, reopened, leading to more alcohol-fuelled fights. Also expected to rise are burglaries, as people spend more time outside their homes, and shoplifting, as retail premises reopen and more people venture out.
Homicides in London to the end of May this year numbered 50, exactly the same as in the same period in 2020. But May 2021 saw a rise in homicides with 15 in that month, compared with 6 in April and 10 in March.
Last week teenagers in Streatham, south London, and Hayes, west London, lost their lives to stabbings.
