London Homicides and Ethnicity: What the Published Data Shows.

Statistics about murder can quickly become political. The most useful starting point, however, is simpler: what do the published figures actually say?

An analysis by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), covering London homicides between 2019 and 2023, identified 41 unsolved murders. Its findings have since been reported by multiple outlets, including the Standard and the Guardian.

The figures are striking, particularly when ethnicity is considered.

The headline figures

According to the AOAV analysis:

• 41 London murders during the period were classified as unsolved.

• 92.9% of the victims in those unsolved cases were from minority ethnic backgrounds.

• 73% of the victims in the unsolved cases were Black.

• By comparison, Black victims represented approximately 40% of all homicide victims.

• Minority-ethnic victims represented approximately 61.7% of all homicide victims.

Put another way, the ethnic composition of London's unsolved homicide cases was substantially different from that of London's homicides overall.

That is the statistical finding. The more difficult question is why.

What happens when the method of killing is examined?

The figures become more specific when the cases are separated by method.

Among unsolved shootings, the analysis records 36 Black victims, representing approximately 83.7% of the cases.

Among unsolved stabbings, there were 39 Black victims, representing approximately 73.5%.

These figures should not be interpreted as saying that 83.7% of Black shooting victims, or 73.5% of Black stabbing victims, have their cases left unsolved. They describe the ethnic composition of the unsolved cases.

That distinction matters.

What the numbers don't tell us

Statistics can establish a disparity without establishing its cause.

The figures do not, by themselves, demonstrate that ethnicity was a reason a particular homicide remained unsolved. Nor can they tell us whether differences in witness cooperation, victim and offender relationships, location, CCTV availability, forensic evidence, gang or organised-crime involvement, or other investigative factors explain the disparity.

Those questions require case-level analysis.

This is particularly important because homicide investigations are not simple yes-or-no events. An investigation may remain open while detectives continue to pursue evidence, and the status of a case can change over time.

Why the Met's data matters

The Metropolitan Police publishes its own homicide data, providing victim-level information including factors such as ethnicity, method and location.

That makes the MPS data an important source for testing the broader picture.

However, the AOAV analysis and the MPS dataset should not automatically be treated as identical datasets. AOAV has used its own methodology to identify and classify cases, drawing on police information, press reporting and other publicly available sources.

So the responsible conclusion is not that the AOAV figures have been independently reproduced from every MPS case record.

Rather, the published figures provide a clear statistical signal that warrants closer examination.

Why this matters to policing

For police officers, the most useful question is probably not whether one statistic proves discrimination or disproves it.

It is whether there is an identifiable pattern that investigators, policymakers and communities should understand.

If a particular group makes up a disproportionately large share of unsolved homicide victims, that has practical implications regardless of the eventual explanation.

It raises questions about:

• witness confidence and cooperation;

• relationships between communities and police;

• access to reliable evidence;

• the circumstances in which particular types of violence occur;

• investigative resources and practices; and

• whether some communities are experiencing a disproportionate burden of unresolved violence.

Those are operational questions rather than ideological ones.

The bottom line

The published data presents a striking disparity.

Between 2019 and 2023, AOAV identified 41 unsolved London murders. Its analysis found that 92.9% involved minority-ethnic victims and 73% involved Black victims, compared with 61.7% and 40% respectively across all homicide victims.

For unsolved shootings, Black victims accounted for approximately 83.7% of cases. For unsolved stabbings, the figure was approximately 73.5%.

These statistics are worth taking seriously.

But they should also be described precisely. They demonstrate a disparity; they do not, on their own, explain it.

The next step is therefore not more argument. It is better data: matching the individual cases against Metropolitan Police records and establishing exactly which cases were solved, which remained unsolved, and what factors distinguished the two groups.

That is where the statistics become evidence that can be properly tested.

Compiled With GPT