Homicide rate in Hertfordshire among lowest in England and Wales

Hertfordshire's homicide rate is among the lowest across England and Wales, new figures show.

Nationally, police logged the lowest number of homicide victims since 2016-17, excluding 2020-21, due to the pandemic.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show Hertfordshire Constabulary recorded seven people dying because of a homicide incident in the year to March – down from eight the year before.

It meant there were 5.3 victims per million residents over the last three years – among the lowest rates across England and Wales.

Nationally, the number of victims fell by 14 per cent 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 almost 40 victims per million people, compared with around nine 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."