Are we experiencing an epidemic of violence and abuse?

Violence and abuse are no longer confined to the margins of society; they have permeated workplaces, public services, streets, homes, schools, online forums, places of worship, and even political discourse. From retail staff and healthcare workers to religious minorities and women trapped in abusive relationships, aggression has become disturbingly commonplace.

The evidence is difficult to dismiss. Retail workers are subjected to abuse in unprecedented numbers, NHS staff face rising levels of physical assault, and antisemitic incidents have reached alarming levels. The Community Security Trust has documented record levels of antisemitism in recent years, underscoring that hatred of Jews is not merely a relic of the Nazi past but a resurgent and escalating threat. Domestic abuse remains equally pervasive: while some forms of physical violence may have declined, coercive control, stalking, economic abuse, and digitally enabled harassment have proliferated.

A growing body of research points to broader social and political drivers. A decade of austerity under Conservative governments, coupled with institutional erosion, strained public services, ongoing geopolitical conflicts, and the pressures of the cost-of-living crisis, has generated widespread frustration. When people feel neglected or abandoned, that frustration can readily turn into aggression directed at those closest at hand: a nurse, a shop assistant, a neighbour, a partner, or a stranger who looks like a “foreigner”

An additional—and perhaps even more troubling—factor is the brutalisation of public discourse. Donald Trump’s rhetoric has normalised cruelty, humiliation, racism, and dehumanisation. It does not merely tolerate aggression; it performs and rewards it, thereby encouraging its replication. This erosion of basic norms of decency matters because language does not simply describe violence—it facilitates it. When political leaders frame opponents as enemies, casually invoke the destruction of entire societies, or treat facts as optional, they lower the threshold for violence well beyond the political arena. To assume that such influences remain confined to the United States is both naïve and demonstrably false; they reverberate globally.

This dynamic is particularly dangerous in relation to racism and its most virulent form, antisemitism. The recent rise in antisemitic abuse in the UK has not occurred in a vacuum. It has been fuelled by conspiratorial thinking, online radicalisation, the trivialisation of antisemitic rhetoric as mere “banter” by public figures such as Nigel Farage, and a broader climate in which prejudice is normalised, disseminated, and converted into aggression. The language of quasi-fascist politics echoes familiar racist tropes, weaponizing grievance and casting minorities as threats. The result is not only an increase in hatred but also a social environment in which violence becomes a logical extension of that rhetoric.

The persistence of this problem is exacerbated by our tendency to compartmentalise it, thereby obscuring its systemic nature. Antisemitism and racism are treated as “community issues,” retail abuse as an occupational hazard, and domestic violence as a private tragedy. Such fragmentation diminishes the perceived scale of the crisis and encourages piecemeal responses that fail to address its underlying causes. Governments may introduce targeted legislation, create new offences, or publish strategies for individual sectors, yet neglect the broader social conditions from which violence emerges. In reality, violence is not a collection of discrete pathologies but part of a continuum that often begins with discontent and culminates in aggression.

A culture that tolerates aggressive rhetoric, routine incivility, and online abuse fosters an emotional climate in which more serious forms of violence become easier to justify, excuse, and ultimately perpetrate. For this reason, the rise in racial and antisemitic attacks, the abuse of frontline workers, and the persistence of domestic violence should not be viewed as separate phenomena. They are manifestations of the same underlying pathology.

What we are witnessing is not a series of isolated epidemics of violence but a broader crisis of social cohesion. If that diagnosis is correct, then the response cannot be limited to stricter laws alone. It must also include education, the rebuilding of social institutions, a renewed emphasis on mutual responsibility, and a cultural shift that rejects the normalisation of aggression as a marker of strength.