Home Office reacts as Homicide rate in the West Midlands among highest in England and Wales

The West Midlands's homicide rate is among the highest across England and Wales, new figures show.

Nationally, police logged the lowest number of homicide victims since 2016-17, excluding 2020-21, which was affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Office for National Statistics figures show West Midlands Police recorded 36 people dying because of a homicide incident in the year to March – down from 50 the year before.

It meant there were 14.4 victims per million residents over the last three years – among the highest rates across England and Wales. Nationally, the number of victims fell by 14% from 684 to 590, with 10.2 homicides logged per million people.

Homicide figures are a total of murder, manslaughter and infanticide incidents, where one incident can have more than one victim. The figures also show a black person is more than four times more likely to be killed by homicide than a white person, with 39.8 victims per million people, compared with 8.7 victims per million white people.

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Everybody has the right to be safe in their neighbourhoods and communities and we are pleased to see overall homicides down year on year by 14%, but we are not complacent. Differences in rates between ethnic groups are likely to reflect a range of factors, including differing age profiles, geographical distributions and socioeconomic differences.

"Our programme of activity and interventions, such as Violence Reduction Units, are targeted in hot-spot areas based on the prevalence of crime and are designed to help address homicide and drug misuse among other crimes."