Violence
Child abduction: understanding police recorded crime statistics
The offence of child abduction is part of the 'Violence Against the Person' category of police recorded crime. It is only a small proportion of the total category offences (just 0.1% in 2002/03). Yet the total child abduction offence numbers police recorded increased by 45% in 2002/03 from the previous year, to 846 offences. This Research and Development Statistics Directorate (RDS) publication examines the main types of offence that make up the total number of recorded child abductions across England and Wales in 2002/03. Reasons why these offences may have increased so dramatically are also discussed.
Title: Child abduction: understanding police recorded crime statistics
Author: Research and Development Statistics Directorate
Series: Findings 225
Number of Pages: 6
Date Published: 2004
Key points
Just over half of all police recorded child abductions were attempted abductions.
More than half (56%) of all police recorded child abductions involved an offender not known to the victim
Attempted child abductions by strangers were the largest single type of child abductions (47%). In most offences there was minimal contact between the victim and the offender. The number of these offences appears to have increased dramatically since 2001/02.
Child abductions by strangers that were actually successful, rather than attempts, accounted for 9% of all offences recorded (a total of 68 victims in 2002/03).
23% of child abductions were committed by a parent of the child. In some cases the child was not taken outside the UK and it seems that in some of these cases either the offence should not have been recorded or should have been recorded as 'no-crime' at a later stage.
At least 6% of child abductions (probably considerably more) were sexually motivated.
22% of child abductions were classified as 'other'. In these offences some relationship existed between the victim and the offender prior to the abduction, including 'grooming' style relationships, familial relationships, friends, abductions for revenge and abductions by boyfriends.
Definitions
Abduction of a child by parent
'a person connected with the child under the age of sixteen ... takes or sends the child out of the United Kingdom without the appropriate consent.'
(Child Abduction Act 1984, Sec 1)
Abduction of child by other persons
'a person other than [the child's mother, father or others covered in sec 1], without lawful authority or reasonable excuse ... takes or detains a child under the age of sixteen ...'
(Child Abduction Act 1984, Sec 2)
For the purposes of the statistics research, offences were grouped into 4 main types:
parental child abductions – abductions of a child by a natural parent or guardian
stranger attempted child abductions – abductions by someone not known to the child which did not result in the successful abduction of the child
stranger successful child abductions – abductions by someone not known to the child that succeeded
other – successful and attempted abductions of a child by someone with some previous connection to the child.
Data was collected from all police forces in England and Wales on child abduction offences recorded in 2002/03. Forces were asked to send details of the victims and the nature of the offence committed. Some offences had since been recorded as 'no-crime'. The total number of offences used in this analysis was 798.
Why have recorded offences of child abduction increased?
Police recorded offences of child abduction increased by 45% from 2001/02 to 2002/03. In an attempt to provide some explanation for this increase, data was collected on child abductions recorded in the previous year (2001/02) from the 5 forces which recorded the largest numerical increases in England and Wales. The increases ranged from 16 to 61 offences.
Whilst the actual number of all types of child abduction increased across the 5 forces, the largest increase was in stranger attempted abductions.
The number of parental abductions increased by nearly two - thirds across the 5 forces from 56 offences in 2001/02 to 92 offences in 2002/03. However, as a proportion of all child abduction offences recorded in the five forces in 2002/03 parental abductions decreased from 39% to 33% This gives a clear indication that stranger attempted abductions are the primary reason for the large increase in all child abductions recorded in 2002/03, followed by the rise in parental abductions.
Detection and identification of the suspect
The detection rate for child abduction offences fell from 50% in 2001/02 to 37% in 2002/03 (compared to an average for all Violence Against the Person offences of 58% in 2001/02 to 54% in 2002/03).
Data was collected on suspect identification:
in all parental abductions and 90% of 'other' abductions a suspect was identified
in 54% of stranger successful abductions a suspect had been identified
in only 13% of stranger attempted abductions a suspect been identified.
Given that stranger attempted child abductions are likely to have accounted for a large part of the overall increase in child abduction offences (owing at least in part to the effect of the National Crime Recording Standards NCRS), this could provide a good indication of why the detection rate has fallen.
Whilst suspects were identified in all cases of parental abduction, but just over half of stranger successful abductions, previous research has shown that offenders convicted of child abduction are mainly sexually motivated and are not related to the victim.
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Last update: 23/02/04