30 July 2025, 13:15

By David Spencer

London is in the grip of a crime wave on our streets.

Over the last decade, knife crime in the capital has risen by 86.2 per cent – last year saw 16,789 offences, the highest recorded in modern times. Sixty-two per cent of those crimes were robberies – in a substantial number it was a mobile phone that was stolen. Last year in London, 81,000 mobile phones were stolen in robberies and so-called “theft person” offences (like pickpocketing or having a phone snatched out of your hand).

To many Londoners, it feels as though the Metropolitan Police is losing the fight against crime.

An insight revealed in a report published today by Policy Exchange has the potential to change that – our analysis shows that knife crime in the capital is highly geographically concentrated. Only 4 per cent of London’s neighbourhoods account for over a quarter of all knife crime; just 15 per cent of neighbourhoods account for over half of these offences. There are around 20 streets in London’s West End near Oxford Circus which had more knife crime than the lowest 15 per cent of the capital combined.

It is often presumed that when there are more police officers on patrol in........

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