Attempted murder has almost doubled across England and Wales over the last decade, according to a new statistical analysis.
The homicide rate over the past ten years, which includes murder and manslaughter, has increased by some 16 percent, but last month the Chief Constable for the police force for the West Midlands, Dave Thompson, warned MPs that the increase would likely be even higher if emergency trauma care had not “significantly improved” in the intervening years.
“If we look back 10 years, we would probably see more homicides in some of the groups of attempt murders that we are seeing. I think it is remarkable what we are seeing people survive with,” he said — a suggestion borne out by research suggesting the establishment of major trauma networks supported by medical veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars, for example, had decreased deaths resulting from serious injury by as much as 50 per cent in 2015 alone.
Now an analysis of Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures by the opposition Labour Party has revealed that the number of attempted murders has indeed increased by an astonishing 99 percent between 2010-11 and last year, with over a thousand people now facing attempts on their lives, The Sun reports.
Even this may understate the reality of the situation, however, as many criminals who inflict potentially lethal injuries on their victims find themselves being charged with grievous bodily harm (GBH) and wounding with intent offences, rather than attempted murder.
“The rising scale of violent crime is shocking and clear, but the Tories are in denial,” commented hard-left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
“The Prime Minister continues to claim there is no connection between her police cuts and soaring levels of violent crime, he continued.
“Theresa May should listen to the people whose lives are being turned upside down by crime and to police chiefs around the country.”
It is true that police forces have lost thousands of constables since the Tories returned to office in 2010, with manpower plunging to 1980s levels — when crime was much lower –but other issues Labour seem less keen to address are also apparently fuelling the crime wave.
Gang members in London, the hyper-diverse multicultural capital where much of the violence is centred, have cited mass migration, for example, with a British-born knife criminal telling the Evening Standard, “In the last 10 years, since the Somalis and the Congolese came to London, they taught us a whole new level of violence… [W]hen they said, ‘I’m gonna smash you up,’ us guys would be shouting, ‘Yo blud, wot you mean?’ and they would just pull out a blade and juk [stab] you in the chest.”
“It upped the speed and level of violence for us British-born guys. We had to arm up to protect ourselves. It created an upward spiral,” he explained.
Other criminals have revealed the weakness of the criminal justice system, particularly its reluctance to hand down lengthy prison sentences, are little deterrent.
“With no doubt, giving tougher sentences will prevent people from carrying knives,” the BBC was told by one former gang member, who cheerfully admitted that he had “stabbed quite a lot of people. If I was to sit here and count I wouldn’t be able to.”
“It’s just one of them things: you wake up, you have your breakfast, you stab someone,” he explained.
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