Quick summary: Official data shows large disparities in homicide rates in England and Wales, with Black people facing higher risk, but the causes are complex and linked to social and structural factors rather than ethnicity alone. Focusing only on poverty or government cuts misses the role of family stability and community cohesion, which influence how young people are exposed to violence and supported. For policy and practice, reducing harm requires addressing both structural inequalities and local social dynamics, rather than relying on single factor explanations.
Christopher Sullivan is a grieving father, and nothing written here should diminish that. When he stood at a vigil on the edge of Primrose Hill last Sunday and read aloud the lyrics to a Ken Boothe song while people laid flowers for his son, he was doing what any parent would do: trying to make sense of something that has no explanation. Finbar Sullivan was 21, political, creative, and by all accounts someone who did not understand why people hurt each other. His death was a tragedy.
But his father is wrong about one point, and it matters enough to say so.
Chris Sullivan told the Camden New Journal that the killer’s colour, race or creed is irrelevant, and argued that knife crime is rooted in class and shaped by failures in government, policing and the media rather than by immigrants or Black young people.
He also argued that blame should not be directed at minorities or Black young people in discussions of knife crime in London. He is right to reject scapegoating. But the available data points to a more complicated picture. Ignoring that complexity does not protect young Black men; it risks missing patterns that matter for prevention.
I grew up in a slum in the Philippines. Not the kind of place described through official deprivation scores, but somewhere far more direct: homes built from scrap wood, water shared between households, and little in the way of formal youth services or state support. By Chris Sullivan’s logic, I should have grown up afraid of being stabbed. The absence of funding, opportunity, and safety nets should have produced the same violence he describes in Camden. It did not. I was not afraid walking those streets. I am afraid walking some streets in London.
That contrast comes from lived experience, and it needs explaining.
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows clear disparities in serious violence. Over the three years to March 2025, the homicide rate for Black people in England and Wales averaged 36.8 per million, compared with 7.7 per million for White people. Black individuals are also disproportionately represented among both victims and suspects in homicide cases. In the year ending March 2025, they accounted for 14% of victims despite making up around 4% of the population, and around a quarter of suspects in cases where an offender was identified.
None of this means ethnicity is the cause. The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities examined these patterns and concluded that differences in outcomes are shaped by a combination of factors, including socioeconomic conditions, family structure and school exclusion, rather than any single cause. That is important. But it does not end the discussion, because those factors themselves are unevenly distributed across groups.
Census data shows large differences in family structure between ethnic groups in England and Wales. For example, in Census 2021, 51% of Black Caribbean family reference persons were lone parents, the highest proportion of any ethnic group. That gap is documented. Ignoring it does not help anyone.
Homicide rates vary widely across countries, and the numbers are not perfectly comparable. Even so, some lower income countries report lower levels of violence than parts of the UK. The figures below give a rough sense of that difference.
| Country | Region | Homicide Rate (per 100,000) | Data Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | South-east Asia | 0.4 | 2023 |
| China | East Asia | 0.5 | 2020 |
| Vietnam | South-east Asia | 0.9 to 1.0 | 2023–2024 |
| Cambodia | South-east Asia | 1.82 | 2011 |
| Nepal | South Asia | 2.30 | 2016 |
| Bhutan | South Asia | 2.47 | 2020 |
| India | South Asia | 2.82 | latest |
| Sri Lanka | South Asia | 3.31 | latest |
| Philippines | South-east Asia | 4.35 | 2023 |
| Tanzania | Sub-Saharan Africa | 4.59 | latest |
| Kenya | Sub-Saharan Africa | 4.87 | latest |
| Argentina | South America | 4.49 | 2023 |
| Uganda | Sub-Saharan Africa | 8.97 | latest |
| Ethiopia | Sub-Saharan Africa | 8.51 | 2012 |
| Nigeria | Sub-Saharan Africa | 15.75 | latest |
Across countries with lower levels of violence, a pattern starts to emerge, though it is not always easy to measure directly. The data does not capture culture in any simple way, but it points to differences in how societies are organised. In many of these settings, family life tends to be more collective, with extended households and a stronger expectation that adults take responsibility for children beyond their own. These are not policies or programmes. They are everyday habits that shape behaviour over time. Research shows that where social ties are stronger, adults are more likely to monitor and intervene in the lives of young people, which can reduce exposure to violence.
The Philippines, where I was born, has a homicide rate of around 4.35 per 100,000, based on recent international data. That is higher than some of its regional neighbours, such as Indonesia and Vietnam, but far below levels seen in the most violent countries globally, where rates can exceed 15 per 100,000. It also operates with less formal youth provision than the UK. What it does have, unevenly and imperfectly, is a culture that places weight on extended family networks. In many households, multiple generations live together, and responsibility for children is shared more widely. In practice, those networks can absorb pressures that might otherwise spill into violence.
What the broader data suggests is that family stability and community cohesion play a role alongside economic conditions and public services. That is not a comfortable conclusion in Britain, because it risks being misused. But avoiding it altogether leaves part of the problem unexamined.
There are also clear examples globally where violence is driven by other forces, including organised crime, political instability and weak state institutions. In some contexts, social norms shaped by religion and culture also influence how communities respond to conflict, though these effects are difficult to measure and vary across countries.
UNODC data shows that homicide rates in Africa are well above the global average, with some regional estimates in the low teens per 100,000. In parts of Sub Saharan Africa, these higher levels are associated with organised crime, conflict and weak governance. That does not contradict the role of family structure; it sits alongside it.
Chris Sullivan is right about some of this. Cuts to youth services have had real effects, and policing and media coverage shape the environment these incidents happen in. But they do not, on their own, explain the patterns in the data.
The harder part of the conversation is the one that is often avoided. Not ethnicity as destiny, but the clustering of risk factors, including family breakdown, in specific communities. These patterns are visible in public data but rarely discussed openly because of how easily they can be misused. Addressing them carefully is not racism. It is necessary if the aim is to reduce harm.
Finbar Sullivan deserved better, and so do the young men who will come after him if the response stops at the easiest explanation.