Sussex'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, which was affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Office for National Statistics figures show Sussex Police recorded eight people dying because of a homicide incident in the year to March – down from 10 the year before. It meant there were 4.9 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% 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 39.8 victims per million people, compared with 8.7 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."