In the UK, there has been a recent surge in violent crime. Over the past eight months, crime figures show that there has been a significant rise in violent and aggressive crime. It is unknown whom or what is to blame for this sudden change. In 2014 alone the police have reported that there have been far more incidents of violent crime than in 2013.
Violent crime can cover all manner of things. Most often people assume that a violent crime means crime in which the criminal uses a weapon. Whilst weapon use is one type of violent crime, there are others. When a person is committing a crime, there are many ways that they can be violent. Don’t assume that just because a crime did not involve a weapon, a gun or a knife, that the crime was not violent. That is not the case. A violent crime can be something as small as using aggressive language or threatening the victim. Of course, it can also mean something as severe as rape and murder. If you feel as though a criminal acted in an aggressive or intimidating way towards you, then the crime itself was violent.
Up until recently, we had thought that the UK was a safe place to live. When compared to other regions of the world, the UK tended to come out on top. In the past, we could not rival places like America and South Africa when it came to violent crime. Now, though, it seems that the UK is starting to catch up when it comes to violent crime. Criminal defence solicitors say that they have had a surge of business in the past year. That means that more people in the UK are committing crimes than ever before.
The fact that you can’t buy a gun in the UK has not stopped criminals getting their hands on weapons. There are many criminal groups here that share weapons with each other and use them to intimidate citizens. For example, the number of weapon-related crimes in London has risen in the past few months. People in England’s capital are using weapons that they have bought on the black market to steal and threaten the public. The fear that this phenomenon has caused in the UK is unimaginable. People are now more scared than ever to walk around in public. The fear is that they will get accosted by strangers who want to take their belongings or even do physical damage to them.
Some people have suggested that the reason there is more crime in the UK at the moment is because of the poor job market. This theory may sound good on paper, but it does not add up. In the past year, there have been less unemployed people than previous years. In fact, more people in the UK are now in employment than in the last ten years. People often use the lack of employment opportunities as an excuse for criminals in the country. The fact is people who choose to commit crimes don’t do so because they want jobs; they do so because they have fallen in with the wrong crowd. The unemployed in the country who are looking for jobs don’t have time to be criminals as they are too busy with their job search. The negative stereotype surrounding unemployed people doesn’t help. Instead of pointing the finger we need to get to the source of the crime problems in the UK.
To understand why there has been a surge of violent crime in the UK, we need to try and understand the criminal mind. People are acting out not only for personal gain, but because they lack in something. The police need to work with psychologists to further understand what is at the heart of the sudden crime surge.
