Youth Crime Statistics

YOUTH CRIME

Within both political and public debates, it is widely assumed that crime is rising

that crimes committed by young people, being a large part of the problem, are also rising and that offensive but often non-criminal conduct such as deviance, is also on the increase

England and Wales have particularly high rates of youth crime, with more people in custody that other European countries comparatively. Despite this, these has been a significant decline over the last three years

EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY

Despite there being solid and detailed evidence evidence which flatly contradicts these assumptions seems to make little impact

Although recorded crime in England and Wales increased ten fold between 1950 and 1994, and crime surveys confirm a strong rise from the first year they covered (1981) up to the mid 1990's, since then all crimes, however measured, have declined.

While overall youth crime levels and prison rates have significantly declined since the mid-1990's, the public and the politically powerful continue to fear that youth crime is rising, perpetuating a distinctly punitive attitude towards sentencing.

BRITISH CRIME SURVEY (know named the Crime Survey for England and Wales)

it is important to analyse whether the public's suggested fear of youth of youth crime is a reality through current BCS findings.

The 2010/11 BCS shows that the majority of people (60%) believe crime has risen across the country as a whole in the last few years. However, this proportion has fallen since the peak seen in results from the 2008/9 and 2009/10 surveys (75% and 66% respectively). The proportion perceiving that crime has risen locally has halved, suggesting that the public have a more realistic view of crime in their local area (BCS, 2011-12).

OFFICIAL CRIMINAL STATISTICS

Which includes counting incidents recorded by the police, or those reported either by victims

The police can often target specific offences, what is termed ‘target hardening’. An increase in this category of crime in official statistics can be attributed to the greater amount of police attention and not due to an actual increase in this type of crime.

SELF-REPORTS

The main emphasis of Self-Report studies is the focus on the criminal activity of juveniles but fail to include the adult offender population.

Therefore, they cannot be used to give an accurate representation of the extent of adult criminality. The studies require respondents to disclose truthfully all criminal activities within a specific period. Like official statistics, methodological limitations include problems with disclosure.

YOUTH LIFE-STYLE SURVEYS

More recently, Cross-sectional data from both the 1992 youth crime survey reported by Graham and Bowling (1995) and the 1998/99 Youth Lifestyles Survey (Flood- Page et al, 2000) present both the prevalence and frequency of offending within different offence types, but fail to explore the intricacies of the relationship between the two.

One major breakthrough of these cohort studies was that involvement in crime during the early stages of adolescence was related to criminal conduct during late adolescence and early adulthood (Wolfgang, Figlio and Sellin, 1972.

A gap exists between the public perceptions about youth crime and actual levels of recorded youth crime. This has encouraged a general belief that young people are increasingly violent and uncontrollable.

RECOLLECTION

It could be said that the memory for offences, especially for adults decreases with an increasing time interval between the offence and the survey.

CRIME DEFINITION

Whether the offender deems a particular act or type of behaviour as criminal is a subjective matter. It is this subjectivity that can hinder the response to the questionnaire. Thus giving an inaccurate estimation of offending.

UNDERESTIMATION

Many self report studies have found that adult respondents and female respondents are prone to underestimate their levels of offending. This may be because older people and females are concerned to present a façade of respectability whereas young males, who offend more often, are more open about offending.

EXAGERATION

like underestimates, respondents can exaggerate levels of offending in order to appear ‘more criminal’ or be viewed as a ‘serious’ criminal.

LEGAL

Instead of diversion to which our attention has turned to presently, early intervention was promoted. ‘Net widening’ became a desirable aim of youth justice policy.

Between 1997 and 2006, some 3,200 new criminal offences were created and some 60 crime-related bills were passed (Crawford, 2009).

POLITICAL

What has remained high in this period is 'noise' about youth crime with high levels of public anxiety, media scrutiny and political debate.

It is hard to disentangle this noise and the legal activity generated by the system response from objexctive measures. Political deabte about youth crime has therefore created the problem it tries to address.

SOCIAL

Attention is still bring paid to the perceived problem of youth

This occured in parallel with heightened public concern regarding delinquency but only this time, the focvus has been on anti social behaviour as opposed to hooliganism

Wider factors such as the media, public opinion and political rhetoric, contribute to risk averse court, probation and parole decisions and hence play a role in unnecessary system expansion.

The type of reports that make the headlines in the local press relate to anti social youths which too has grew to acquire symbolic stature in recent years.

Definition of Youth

Provide an official/unofficial definition

The problem with definition of 'youth' and 'crime'

we automatically perceive our younger generations to be out and out delinquent

difference between 'crime' and 'deviance'

All acts of crime are deviant yet not all acts of deviance are criminal

Methods of Collection of Criminal Statistics

the main sources of data consist of official and unofficial reports achieved through recorded and unrecorded crime

Aims:

What is the question asking?

Objectives

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Context

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Content

What/Which research, studies, philosophies, theories, evidence have you analysed, evaluated, explored, discussed in an attempt to answer the question.

Reasoning

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Recap

Aim

Objective

Main points of critical analysis

Main points of critical evaluation