Is London Lawless?

0:04Hello, good morning and welcome back to the Standard Podcast. It's me again, Alan Lear, filling in. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. And as always, for the latest news, head over to standard.co.uk. Coming up, is London lawless?

0:28Last year, US President Donald Trump claimed that crime in London is through the roof. Back in our capital, Leila Cunningham, the Reform Party's London mayoral candidate, has declared that London is no longer safe. So are they right? The numbers tell a bit of a different story. There were 97 homicides in London in 2025, down from 109 the previous year. Despite the city's growing population, it is comparatively safer than many other global cities such as New York, Paris, Berlin and Los Angeles. Every US state has a higher homicide rate than London. And I think those that spread lies and misinformation have got a problem with London.

1:11What is their problem with London? In my view, we are a city that is liberal, that is progressive, that is diverse, that is successful. They hate that. That was the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. So how bad are crime levels in London? And is the city actually unsafe? tomorrow kormornyk a voice you'll be hearing a lot more of on this podcast is joined by the director of the mayor of london's violence reduction unit lib peck to discuss the city's crime status off the back of scotland yard's latest statistics and it is worth mentioning that lib is an incredibly busy person and we are very thankful for their time you may hear a few notification sounds going off in the background it is on our side it's definitely not your emails popping off.

2:01Welcome to The Standard Podcast thank you for joining us. Thank you it's great to be here. I want to start by asking how safe is London? I think that probably depends on where you live in London and your experiences of London but what I can say with certainty is at the end of last year we saw some record reductions in violence affecting Londoners. When the Violence Reduction Unit was set up, there were three times as many homicides of young people as there are today. And we know that over that period as well, the number of young people that have been admitted into hospital for injury involving knife assault has halved.

2:46So the statistics are telling us in terms of violence that London is safer, but I'm not naive. I do realise that that might vary to your experience. And of course, it's of small comfort to somebody who has very sadly experienced any violence themselves or even worse, experienced the murder of a loved one. So the Met Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has hinted at the power of disinformation, saying in his latest Times article that some commentators promote a narrative that suits them, regardless of the facts telling a different story. What do you think the best way to combat this perception is?

3:25Well, I think there's many different ways in which you can combat that perception. The first is obviously what the statistics are actually telling you. So the facts have to be promoted. But I also think it's often about the messenger. I think Londoners are probably a bit more distrustful of institutions and they are much more likely to listen to people or members of the community or many of the people who have been working in our case with young people across many years and have seen that reduction. So I was in a session on Friday with the Met Commissioner and with the Mayor of London and we heard from a very experienced youth worker who's been in hospitals working there as a youth worker with young people who've experienced violence.

4:12And she was saying the last two years, they've noticed a real dramatic drop off of the number of young people that have come in. We were in a place in Southwark, which brings together lots of different organisations that work with young people. They were saying very much the same. And actually, if you listen to those organisations, those people who really invest their time and energy in supporting young people, that picture will be replicated across London. So I think it's a bit about the messenger, it's about the truth of the message. And it's also making sure that we mark progress when progress has been made.

4:48But that is in no way the same as congratulatory way of approaching things or being in any way complacent. Regardless of the stats, do you think Londoners feel safer than they ever have? No, I don't think Londoners feel safer than they ever have. But I do think that's a massive generalisation. I think it depends on which part of London you come from, it depends on what your experience is, it probably depends on how much you work with people who are vulnerable to getting caught up in exploitation and crime. And I do take your more general point that it is really important that we don't just rely on statistics to tell us we're safer, but we actually listen to the concerns of young people and all Londoners and try and respond to that.

5:28And that's why I'm keen to make sure that we acknowledge this as progress, but that there is still a big piece of work to do. You started your tenure as the Director of the Mayor of London's Violence Reduction Unit in 2019. Where have you seen the biggest improvements in crime reduction? Yes, so I was the first Director appointed to the first Violence Reduction Unit, which was set up obviously by the Mayor of London, on the premise that you can't arrest your way out of violence and that prevention and early intervention is absolutely key. I suppose a general point would be that what we see as being the key influencer, particularly in a young person's life, is that they've got a trusted adult, that they've got a mentor, that they've got a youth worker.

6:12It may be a parent, a carer, teacher, but by and large, it sits with that relationship that helps and supports a young person. And we see that, you know, throughout many different programmes and initiatives we fund. So, for example, for young people, we know that exclusion and absenteeism from school is a problem because we also know that kids are safer at school. So the kids that have been excluded tend to go to pupil referral units. And in each of those pupil referral units across London, we have invested in mentors for each of those young people. And what we've seen is a 65 percent increase in their attendance.

6:52So that is a powerful statistic. We also see some of those youth workers that I mentioned earlier on that are in a hospital and seeing somebody who's come in with a knife injury. Thankfully, those numbers are going down. But nonetheless, you see a connection with that youth worker that means that their risk of getting involved and caught up in violence is reduced by 73 percent. They're much more less liable to be at risk. And so I think we see threaded through all of our programmes the importance of that connection. Very often the young people who are, you know, being exploited, you know, engaging in violence are in a very difficult situation.

7:31It might be because they've started off life with lots of disadvantages, but it's always been compounded by the fact that they have often felt very detached from any of those institutions or organisations or peers that make it really complicated for them. So reversing that is absolutely key. But there's a whole range of prevention measures. What this stat tells us is that prevention works and what we need to keep doing is investing in it. And which areas are of highest concern to you? And are you seeing any new challenges? In terms of new challenges, we do every few years a look across London, what's called a strategic needs assessment, and see what the different patterns and trends are.

8:14And what we do know is that the age group is getting slightly younger in terms of violent incidents. And so that is for us to think about not only focusing so much on secondary school age children, but thinking about that primary, that younger cohort, which indeed we're doing. And we're in primary schools supporting things like Oracy lessons, which increase a young person's ability to communicate. But also, I think the other thing we've seen is the real perniciousness of online and social media. and we're doing a piece of research that looks at what is happening on social media, translates into violence on the streets.

8:49We're working very closely with young people. We're engaging with Ofcom on issues and most importantly, we do a lot of training of parents, teachers and young people around the positives of social media, about how to escape the negatives. And one of the other things is investing in healthy relationship training and courses in schools. And that's about helping young people to understand what is a good part of a relationship and what is actually unacceptable. And what we find out from what we know from that, to your point around impact, is that of the young people across London that have participated in that, we've seen that sort of 90 % of them would be able to recognise a healthy relationship and 80 % of them would recognise what we'd classify as a red flag.

9:37So impactful work.

9:41We're going to nip off for a very quick ad break. We'll be back in a sec.

9:53Welcome back to The Standard Podcast. We'll get straight back to our interview with LibPec.

10:02While the murder rate has declined, we cannot ignore that knife crime is still a big problem in the capital. According to the Office of National Statistics, there were 16 ,344 incidents recorded between 2024 and 2025. Obviously, this is a lot higher than post-pandemic levels. What are some of the measures that your department is taking to tackle this issue? Well, we see it all as one issue. So it's a continuum. Obviously, we don't want young people to be using knives because we know in the most deadliest of contacts that ends up in homicide figures. And of course, any young person who is using a knife is blighting their own life chances in terms of opportunities and excelling and doing something in a very positive way, as well as obviously the victim that might get caught up in it.

10:54So it's all part of the same measures around early intervention and prevention. And that's why I go back to, while we're seeing really good statistics around the homicide rate dropping, it is really important that we don't take our eye off the ball and see this is a moment where we think we've cracked that and nothing else is important. All of this is really key. Part of the message of working with young people that we also need to get out is that understandably in many ways young people think that if they don't feel safe they need to carry a knife to feel safer there's a logic to that for for them but it's in fact a perverse logic because we know that that actually is exactly the opposite of what the case is so there is a lot of messaging but a lot of that comes back to giving young people the confidence the tools the support through early intervention programs youth workers people that live in their community and making sure that the messaging that we're putting out as well across London recognises, you know, A, how they might feel challenged, but B, how they need to respond to it.

11:58Can I just ask quickly, you mentioned that your experience of London and how safe you feel in London is going to differ at different points in the city. Which parts of London are the most violent? I think it's always slightly dangerous to classify places like that because you are talking about different neighbourhoods, different dynamics and patterns, you know, ebb and flow. But what I think you can tell, and we're involved in looking at the long-term causes of violence, is that there is an intrinsic and toxic relationship between poverty, alienation, deprivation, that means certain neighbourhoods have a much harder challenge in terms of creating a more peaceful environment.

12:42And so some of the work that we do recognises that and works intensively in those communities that have been blighted for a long time by violence through our award-winning My Ends programme, which is bringing together charity organisations, bringing together those who are doing some of that burly intervention work and some of those who are working to divert young people who are already in gangs and really focusing in on that neighbourhood. So not even a borough, not even a ward, but a place that people who live and work there know and recognise as a difficult environment for young people to grow up in.

13:18In 2025, there were 27 domestic-related killings. That represents a 58 % rise on the previous year. I have to ask, what about women's safety? How should the issue of violence against women be addressed from a policy perspective? I think you're right to draw attention to that. we know for far too long and it's not in London it's across it's nationally it's across the country that not enough focus has been put in on violence against women and girls and certainly the young women that we speak to and indeed my own daughters would talk about you know the environment in which we're growing up and what that means to be a young woman in London so I think you're right to recognise that.

14:01The Mayor has put in a lot of investment to tackling this issue and he's been very vocal on it and and that for us means working alongside organizations like Advance which does a lot of mentoring of young women it means creating safe spaces so that young women are able to express themselves it means tackling that online and social media environment that I think has been so pernicious by thinking about that healthy relationship training and it means I think culturally and as a society and this is the same for everywhere as well as London it means being outspoken about how unacceptable it is that a young woman feels much more threatened walking around in London and shouldn't do and as you say that inside the home much more likely to unfortunately experience you know domestic abuse.

14:51What kind of measures do you think need to happen for Londoners to feel safer or to change the perception about London? Do you think it's as simple as a crackdown on petty theft? Or do you think it's a case of keeping on keeping on working with these policies that are brought about to bring long term change? Well, I think you're right to highlight the fact it's persistence. I think when I speak to community groups and charities. They have really good evidence, examples of what works. And it's actually the same with some of the local councils across London as well. It's the same you'll find with many teachers.

15:34And what they're all sick and tired of is episodic funding, you know, that you might get a bit of funding for a year, and then you've got to reprove why you should be getting commissioning for another programme. So there's something about persistence, absolutely. There is something about looking at the statistics as they are to understand what the context is. There is something for me about the de-stigmatisation of young people. We've got fantastic young Londoners. Most young Londoners, the vast, vast, vast majority, want to succeed and excel. They don't want to be demonised. They don't want to go down a life of crime or indeed a life of violence.

16:12So it's something about how we as a society treat them and view them. and some of it is around the concrete methods that we are showing and demonstrating work in a prevention sense and of course there is an enforcement angle from the police that is key as well so I think it's a really multifaceted long-term issue that we've got to keep going with and today marks some progress but you're right to highlight that you know there is so much more to do. And I want to touch on, in recent months, Elon Musk tweeted that civil war in Britain is inevitable. It's just a question of when. Donald Trump has said that crime in London is through the roof.

16:55What is your response to these types of comments? They don't live in London, do they? They don't understand what the opportunities that London provides, that it is the greatest city, I think. And so I take it with more than a dose of scepticism. I don't think it's a picture that most Londoners would recognise. And for all, there are faults in London, and there are challenges undoubtedly, but the characterisation by two billionaires in that way isn't something I give a lot of attention to. And just lastly, can I ask, how do you think London compares to other global cities with regards to crime in general and violent crime?

17:38Okay, well, in terms of violent crime, which is the question I can answer, I know that it is safer than many of the US cities. If you take Chicago, take New York, for examples, their rates of violence are much, much higher than in London. And I know that we're also safer than places nearer home such as Berlin and Milan. There are lots of different examples, I think, of where we as London are doing well in comparison to European and certainly in comparison to US cities. And if you have a message for Londoners on the status of safety in the capital, what would that be? My message would be, without being in any way complacent, London is a safer city than perhaps is promoted, sometimes through some of the social media.

18:28Go and talk to social workers, youth workers. Go and talk to young people. Get involved. This has to be a collective effort. And what we've seen today and what we're hearing about today shows that actually if we make connections, we make relationships, that is the way that we are going to make it even safer. Thank you so much, Lib. No problem. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lib Peck, for joining us on the show today.

18:56And that's it for The Standard. For all of your latest news, head over to standard.co.uk. And if you'd like to get in touch, please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here tomorrow morning. We'll see you then.