Young Offenders: Sentencing

(asked on 29th February 2016) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of young offenders previously sentenced to (a) up to five, (b) between five and 10 and (c) more than 10 Youth Rehabilitation Orders (YRO) were sentenced to another YRO for a further offence in the most recent year for which information is available; and for which offence that further YRO was given in each such case.


Answered by
Andrew Selous Portrait
Andrew Selous
Second Church Estates Commissioner
This question was answered on 18th March 2016

The following table shows the number of juveniles in the year ending September 2015 by the offence type of the crime for which the youth rehabilitation order was received and the number of previous youth rehabilitation orders.

Compared to the year ending March 2010 in year ending March 2015 there were 67% fewer first-time entrants to the youth justice system and 67% fewer who received a caution or court disposal.

However, reoffending rates are far too high and the care and supervision of young offenders in custody is not good enough. That is why the Justice Secretary has asked Charlie Taylor to conduct a review of youth justice. He will report back later this year with recommendations on how to improve the treatment of young people in our care.

Number of juveniles1 receiving youth rehabilitation orders by offence type and the number of previous youth rehabilation orders the juvenile had received, England and Wales, year ending September 20152

Number of juveniles

Total number of juveniles

Number of previous youth rehabilitation orders

Offence Classification

none

1 - 4

5-10

more than 10

Violence against the person

66

43

21

2

0

Sexual offences

45

39

6

0

0

Robbery

33

31

2

0

0

Theft Offences

353

178

161

13

1

Criminal damage and arson

36

15

18

3

0

Drug offences

77

47

27

2

1

Possession of weapons

45

29

15

1

0

Public order offences

70

40

26

3

1

Miscellaneous crimes against society

93

55

37

1

0

Fraud offences

4

3

1

0

0

Summary offences excluding motoring

608

312

275

20

1

Summary motoring offences

2

1

1

0

0

Total

1,432

793

590

45

4

Source: Ministry of Justice's extract of the Police National Computer (PNC)

NOTES:

1. Figures are based on counting the number of occasions an offender received a youth rehabilitation order in England and Wales, meaning an offender can appear more than once in the totals if the offender was convicted on multiple occasions.

2. All data have been taken from the MoJ extract of the Police National Computer. This includes details of all convictions, cautions, reprimands or warnings given for recordable offences (see www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/1139/schedule/made for definition). It is therefore possible that some offenders presented in the table above have previously also received convictions for offences not recorded on the PNC.

3. Figures are based on counting the number of occasions on which offenders have previously received a youth rehabilitation order recorded on the Police National Computer, including some offences committed outside of England and Wales.

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