Sanctions: Cautions and Convictions
The following tables provide information on young people aged 10-17 who have been
cautioned by the police or convicted in court - i.e. those formally sanctioned in
some way. However, as a measure of the real extent of young people’s offending, Crime
& Disorder Reduction Partnerships will need to bear in mind that these figures are
limited for the following reasons:
-
They do not provide data specifically on persistent young offenders, although
offences committed by persistent young offenders are contained within the
figures
-
The cautions and convictions data exclude those who are
not caught by the police. The cautions relate only to those recorded by the
police and exclude any informal warnings
-
As a guide to trends they are problematic, as policies to divert young offenders
from the criminal justice system through measures such as informal cautions will have
the effect of reducing the number sanctioned
-
If the police are doing less well in identifying young offenders and bringing
them to the remit of sanctions, this will reduce cautioning and conviction rates
-
Detection rates have fallen in recent years, although we do not know whether
this has applied equally for older and younger offenders.
Flood-Page, C., Campbell, S., Harrington, V. &
Miller, J. (2000). Youth Crime, Findings from the 1998/99 Youth Lifestyles
Survey. Home Office Research Study 209. Home Office: London.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/hors209.pdf
Number of Young People aged 10-17 Found Guilty or Cautioned
for indictable offences 1989 to 1999
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enlarged version of the above graph
Number of young people aged 10 to 17
found guilty or cautioned by indictable offence group in 1994 and 1999
.gif)
Click here for an enlarged
version of the above graph
Note:
1 Violent indictable offence groups are
violence against the person, sexual offences and robbery. The total
number of known offenders (i.e. those cautioned or found guilty) for
these offences was 20,600 in 1994 and 18,100 in 1999. The total
number of known juvenile offenders for all indictable offenders was
135,800 in 1994 and 120,500 in 1999.
Source for above charts: Crime & Criminal
Justice Unit, Research, Development & Statistics Directorate,
Home Office
Youth Lifestyles Survey 1998/99 - Sanctions Data
The Youth Lifestyles Survey, which was carried
out in England & Wales between October 1998 and January 1999,
defines a persistent young offender 'as someone who, in the last
year, had committed three or more offences'. It found that among
persistent young offenders aged 12-17 who fitted into its
definition:
3% had been sanctioned (cautioned
or taken to court) in the last 12 months
24% of male persistent offenders had been
sanctioned
21% of female persistent offenders had been
sanctioned
Persistent offenders under the age of 18 were more
likely to have been cautioned or taken to court (23%) than older
persistent offenders (14%). This may in part because they had
committed more offences. The average number of offences committed
by a persistent offender under 18 was five compared to four for
persistent offenders aged 18 to 30
Younger offenders tend to commit more commonly
detected offences (e.g. criminal damage or shoplifting) whereas
older persistent offenders were more involved in fraud and theft
from the workplace, which are less likely to result in a caution
or court appearance.
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