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London's Violence Reduction Unit hits one-million milestone as youth knife-assault admissions fall 55%
Mayor Sadiq Khan announced the VRU reached one million Londoners this month; violence-with-injury victims down about 12,500, gun crime and robbery down over a quarter.
Why it matters
London Mayor Sadiq Khan today announced that his Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), set up in 2019, will this month reach one million Londoners - 750,000 young people through interventions and diversionary activities, plus 250,000 parents, carers, youth workers and professionals trained and supported. It is the first VRU in England and Wales.
The data shows impact: youth hospital admissions for knife assault are down 55% since 2019, falling faster than the rest of the country; there are about 12,500 fewer victims of violence with injury; gun crime and personal robbery are down more than a quarter; knife-crime victims fell by 2,500 over three years and another 10% in the last 12 months.
Details
The Mayor has invested over £140m in the VRU's public-health approach rather than enforcement alone: keeping children in classrooms (exclusion doubles a young person's risk of involvement in violence), hospital-based youth workers who have steered 75% of the young people they support away from further harm, nearly 17,000 young people reached in custody suites to break reoffending cycles, and 60,000 targeted interventions through the flagship MyEnds programme in the communities that need it most.
Khan said: “We cannot arrest our way out of violence. Violent crime is preventable, not inevitable.” VRU Director Lib Peck urged the Government to match the Mayor's long-term commitment with multi-year funding toward the shared national ambition of halving knife crime. Today Khan and Peck visited a VRU programme at Croydon Amateur Boxing Club. Martin Griffiths, consultant trauma surgeon at Barts Health, said behind every injury that did not happen is a safer young Londoner and a family spared the worst day of their lives.
Sources
London City Hall official press release (london.gov.uk), 2026-10-23.
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