A DROP in homicides in Scotland, with killings halved in a decade, is bucking a UK trend according to the latest figures.

The country’s death rate has fallen by 52 percent with a number of intervention initiatives believed to having a significant impact.

Killings reduced from 119 in 2006/07 to 57 in 2015/16

In Glasgow the drop was almost 60 percent with 14 homicides in the last year compared to 33 ten years before.

Glasgow is still the highest in Scotland, accounting for one quarter of the national total of 57 but the overall decline has been welcomed as “encouraging” by the justice secretary.

The rate has dropped steadily across the country since 2006 with Edinburgh dropping from 11 to just one and North Lanarkshire from 10 to four.

In 2005, with Glasgow burdened with the knife crime capital of Europe label, Strathclyde Police set up the Violence Reduction Unit.

A decade on the strategy now taken forward by Police Scotland, is a model for other cities.

Will Linden, Strategic Development Manager, said the city is ahead of other major cities in the scale of the reduction.

While he said every homicide is a tragedy there have been undoubted improvements.

He said: “We are bucking an international trend.

“In Scotland we have changed the culture of knife crime significantly.”

He said there has been a reduction of 70 percent in young people caught carrying knives which is a factor in the homicide figures

He adds: “Homicide is, in the main, an assault that’s went wrong. If you remove weapons from assaults the chance of homicide reduces significantly. Around one in 50 stabbings results in homicide.”

Mr Linden said in England and Wales the trend is starting to go back up.

He said: “London is higher than Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham have all had increases. From 2005 we started to address the issue.

“This reduction is a product of everything that’s been done not one initiative.”

“London is significantly behind us. They are only now starting to do what we have done.”

A reduction young people drinking especially outdoors and a shift in youth culture from outdoor to on-line activity has also contributed to social change.

But the drop is not down to chance according to Mr Linden.

He said: “We have invested in education programmes and changing cultures.”

Scotland’s homicide rate is the lowest since modern comparable records began in 1976.

The most common method of killing was with a knife or sharp instrument, followed by hitting and kicking.

The number of shootings was very low around 2 percent of the total.

In seven out of ten cases the victim and killer were known to each other and stranger killing was far lower at one in four.

Male victims were most likely to be killed by an acquaintance and female victims, until last year, where most likely to be killed by a partner of ex-partner.

In the last ten years 51 percent of all adult female victims were killed by a partner or ex-partner, under one third, (28 percent) were killed by someone else they knew and just 7 percent were killed by a stranger.

Michael Matheson, Justice Secretary said: “While it is encouraging to see continued falls in homicide cases alongside the long-term decline in violent crime, the sustained efforts that have helped achieve this, through education and enforcement, must continue, because each of the lives lost is one life too many.

“We will continue to work with partners and invest in a range of projects to help steer our young people away from the risks of a life of violence and crime, while also ensuring our law enforcement agencies and the courts have the powers and resources needed to deal with those who do harm to others.”