The Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) model is set to be rolled out across England and Wales, according to the 2024 Budget. In his speech last week, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that violence Reduction Units and hot spot policing have prevented an estimated 136,000 knife crimes and other violent offences as well as over 3,000 hospital admissions. “Every crime costs money – so we will provide £75m to roll that model out in England and Wales,” he told the House of Commons.
First announced in 2019, some 20 VRUs have been set up, as a multi-agency public health approach to understanding the causes of violence and bringing bodies together at a local level to develop a coordinated and strategic response to violence.
At the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) Serious Violence Leads, Cleveland PCC Steve Turner and West Midlands PCC Simon Foster, said: “As Serious Violence Leads we have long been advocates of the vital work done by Violence Reduction Units to tackle violent crime and are in full support of the plan to roll them out nationally. Partnership working and preventative activity lie at the core of the PCC role and a wider rollout of VRUs will greatly enhance local capability to divert young people away from serious crime and build our understanding of serious violence at a national level.
“In light of this announcement we would like to firmly reiterate the importance of adequate multi-year funding to implement long-term, sustainable solutions to tackle serious violence. We look forward to a national and joined-up effort to integrate established systems and learnings from existing VRUs in the implementation of the new units across England and Wales.”
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, meanwhile announced an extra £2.2m to extend GPS tagging, of knife crime offenders released from prison. A further trial of GPS from June will cover stalkers who do not fall within the definition of domestic abuse.
According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) by the ONS (Office for National Statistics), there were an estimated 0.9 million violence offences in the year ending September 2023, no significant change compared with the year ending September 2022. The ONS points to a general downward trend in violent crime since its peak in 1995.
