Categorieën: Alle - rehabilitation - custody - trends - statistics

door Gillian Dickinson 8 jaren geleden

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Youth Crime Statistics

The dynamics of youth justice have evolved significantly, reflecting changes in policy and societal attitudes. Historically, both public perception and government policy have contributed to high incarceration rates for young offenders, with the UK having one of the highest rates in Europe.

Youth Crime Statistics

OPPORTUNITY FOR THEORETICAL APPLICATION: Stanley Cohen's 'Moral Panic'

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.

MOVE ON TOPEXPLORE THE CONTEMPORARY TRENDS IN YOUTH CUSTODY AND THE RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF YOUTH CRIME/JUSTICE STATISTICS.

Youth Crime Statistics

The question covers a number of central concerns. These are:

This map relates to section B of the exam, specifically question 1:

Policy of Decarceration

Within youth justice, it is important to reflect upon the central themes and contested dynamics and understand that youth justice as a system is a relative construct which is subject to the varying impulses of policy and law makers. One such theme being our over zealous use of custody for young people.


Historically, the public's and the Government’s perception of and “obsession” with teenagers on street corners had contributed to the sharp rise in the number of young people in prison’. The government’s continuing reliance on custodial sentences for young offenders, with more young people in custody than other European countries (besides Turkey). By 2011, the level of imprisonment for 14 to 17-year olds was double that in the early 1990s. Yet, trends in recorded/notifiable crime fell during  this period.

In the last five years, there has been a significant declines in the caseload of the youth justice system with the population of the secure estate for children and young people, for under 18 year olds was 861.This is a decrease of 29 from the previous month and a decrease of 142 from the previous year (MOJ, 2016).

Even criminal legislation has acknowledged the need to reduce the use of custody for youth offenders: the new Youth Rehabilitation Order has encourage sentencers to use these robust alternatives to custody where they are available.

To promote community sentencing, sentencers must now provide a reason if they do not use an alternative to custody for those young people who are on the custody threshold.

CONCLUSION

Main points of critical analysis/critical evaluation
Some young offenders, such as those from socially disadvantaged families, are more likely to be caught than others.

The Ministry of Justice have been quoted as saying those under 18 "should only be held in custody as a last resort and for the protection of the public"

The number of young people coming into the criminal justice system fell by 9% from 2006/7 to 2007/8.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said that there are currently many children who are not a threat to public safety that are put into custody.

Fewer young people re-offend and those who do commit fewer crimes (between 2000 and 2007, the percentage of young offenders who re-offended within 12 months fell by 6.6% and the frequency of re-offending fell by 23.6%) .
There are encouraging signs that the Government’s recent interventions are making a difference to youth crime.
Objective
Aim
Recap

INTRODUCTION

Reasoning
What was the reasoning behind these choices?
Content
What/Which research, studies, philosophies, theories, evidence have you analysed, evaluated, explored, discussed in an attempt to answer the question.
Context
In what context does the question relate to?
Objectives
How might you answer the question?
Aims:
What is the question asking?

DESCRIPTION

Methods of Collection of Criminal Statistics
the main sources of data consist of official and unofficial reports achieved through recorded and unrecorded crime
difference between 'crime' and 'deviance'
All acts of crime are deviant yet not all acts of deviance are criminal
The problem with definition of 'youth' and 'crime'
we automatically perceive our younger generations to be out and out delinquent
Definition of Youth
Provide an official/unofficial definition

IMPLICATIONS OF INACCURATE DATA

SOCIAL
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.
This occurred in parallel with heightened public concern regarding delinquency but only this time, the focus 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.

Attention is still bring paid to the perceived problem of youth
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 objective measures. Political debate about youth crime has therefore created the problem it tries to address.

LEGAL

The changes in policy brought about by the flagship slogan, ‘No more excuses’, was ideological rather than empirical and New Labour’s penal policies have been evidence-based only when their visibility has been low. Whereas high visibility initiatives have been driven by the need to be seen to be ‘tough on crime’, whatever the evidence may advise. This view is adequately illustrated by the belief that youth crime constitutes a crisis to which tougher policies were the only solution. For example, the Crime and Disorder Act, 1998 was characterised by a preoccupation with surveillance and control which led to excessive intervention in the lives of young people and their families.

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).

CRITICAL EVALUATION: Possible Reasons for the reduction in the use of custody?

Cost
Sending someone to prison is on average 12 times more expensive than a Probation or Community Service Order, which costs about £6 per offender per day:

Sending one young person to a Young Offenders’ Institution £42,000 - 1 year Community Rehabilitation Order £3,000 - 1 year Community Punishment Order £2,000 - 1 year Community Punishment and Rehabilitation Order £4,000 - 1 year Drug Treatment Order £8,000 - 6 month ISSP £6,000

Victimisation
Victimisation and offending are closely linked.

Children and young people who are victimised are more likely than others to break the criminal law, and young offenders are also more likely to have been victims of crime.

Locking up young offenders also makes them more likely to commit further crimes and be unemployed later in life, says the New Economics Foundation (2012).

Criminalisation
Our low minimum criminal responsibility bucks the worldwide trend, which is to raise the age, generally to at least 14.

Those countries that have an age of less than 14 tend to be Commonwealth countries or those that have an early association with the British legal system and reasons for retaining such a low age are thus, more connected with historical tradition than with consideration of children’s best interests.

Even criminal legislation has acknowledged the need to reduce the use of custody to youth offenders:
Arrests and out of court disposals

Penalty Notices for Disorder

There were also 5,571 Penalty Notices for Disorder (PNDs) given to 16-17 year olds in 2011/12 and in 2011 there were 375 Anti Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) given to young people.

In the last year the number of PNDs given to young people has gone down by 26 per cent and the number of ASBOs down 30 per cent.

Reprimands, Final Warnings and Conditional Cautions

There were 40,757 reprimands, final warnings and conditional cautions given to young people in England and Wales in 2011/12.

This is a decrease of 18 per cent on the 49,407 given in 2010/11, and a decrease of 57 per cent on the 94,836 given in 2001/02.

Arrests

In 2010/11 there were 1,360,451 arrests in England and Wales of which 210,660 were of people aged 10-17.

Thus, 10-17 year olds accounted for 15.5 per cent of all arrests but were 10.7 per cent of the population of England and Wales of offending age.

The new Youth Rehabilitation Order: has encourage sentencers to use these robust alternatives to custody where they are available.

To promote community sentencing, sentencers must now provide a reason if they do not use an alternative to custody for those young people who are on the custody threshold.

The following community sentences have been replaced by the YRO: Action Plan Order, Curfew Order, Supervision Order (and conditions), Community Punishment Order, Community Punishment and Rehabilitation Order, Attendance Centre Order, Drug Treatment and Testing Order, Exclusion Order and Community Rehabilitation Order (and conditions).

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

POLICY of DECARCERATION
The evidence for the current programme of decarceration is compelling:

A BMA study in 2013 found that many of the young offenders placed in custody, come from chaotic backgrounds, and are often victims of violence, abuse or neglect.

Over a third of children in custody were diagnosed with a mental health disorder.

Approximately 60% of children in custody have ‘significant’ speech, language and learning difficulties ; 25-30% are learning disabled and up to 50% have learning difficulties.

Of 300 children and young people in custody and on remand, 12% were known to have lost a parent or sibling.

24% of boys and 49% of girls, aged between 15 and 18 and in custody, have been in care.

40 per cent had been homeless in the six months before entering custody.

EVIDENCE OF CONTEMPOARY TRENDS IN YOUTH CUSTODY RATES
YOUTH CRIME

For most of the eighteenth century (1700s) there was no concept of childhood in any recognizable modern sense. In other words, children tended to be expected to pass straight from physical dependence to something close to adulthood. The period of physical dependence was taken to last up to about age 7-10. After that most children were expected to work adult hours ... and if convicted of a crime were held fully responsible and punished as adults. In Britain and France the 1770s saw the gradual rise of the concept of an intermediate stage between physical dependence (infancy) and adulthood, namely childhood. The first books written specifically for children and some children's clothing began to appear for the first time. This development was largely confined to the middle classes, and for the poor it had to wait until well after 1850. The concept of adolescence - that is, a period between childhood and adulthood - is even more recent. I've deliberately avoided mentioning the Enlightenment, as the beginnings

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

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. Often perpetuating a distinctly punitive attitude towards sentencing.

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 paralleled only by our historically high youth custody rates. Prior to 2011, E + W had more people in custody than other European countries comparatively. Despite this, there has been a significant decline in youth custody.

For children, the figures are even higher and yet the Government continues to act as though prison is the best answer for preventing crime among young people.

There is a ratchet effect: if prison didn't work, then the answer must be more prison.

It has been suggested that the current system was spending £100,000 a year for each young offender and "not getting very good results“ with 73% re-offending within the year.