These statistics concentrate on the flow of children (aged 10-17) through the Youth Justice System in England and Wales. The data described comes from various sources including the Home Office (HO), Youth Custody Service (YCS), Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) and youth secure estate providers. The report is produced by the Information and Analysis Team in the Youth Justice Board (YJB) under the direction of the Chief Statistician in MOJ.

Details of the number of children arrested are provided along with proven offences, criminal history, characteristics of children, details of the number of children sentenced, those on remand, those in custody, reoffending and behaviour management.

The report is published, along with supplementary tables for each chapter, additional annexes, local level data, including in an open and accessible format, an infographic and local level maps.

Pre-release access

Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons (reflecting the cross-departmental responsibility for children committing crime and reoffending):

MOJ

Secretary of State, Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Victims, Youth and Family Justice, Permanent Secretary, Chief Statistician, Director General of Offender and Youth Justice Policy, Director of Data and Analysis, Deputy Director of Youth Justice Policy, Head of Youth Custody Policy, Head of Courts and Sentencing, Head of Youth Justice Analysis and the relevant special advisers, private secretaries, statisticians and press officers

HMPPS

Director General of HMPPS, Executive Director of the Youth Custody Service, Head of Briefing, Governance and Communications at the Youth Custody Service, and Head of Information Team at the Youth Custody Service

Home Office

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service and Minister for London, and Head of Serious Youth Violence Unit

YJB

Chair, Chief Executive, Chief Operating Officer, Director of Evidence and Technology, and the relevant statisticians and communication officers

These statistics concentrate on the flow of children (aged 10 to 17) through the youth justice system in England and Wales. The data described comes from various sources including the Home Office (HO), Youth Custody Service (YCS), Ministry of Justice (MOJ), youth justice services and youth secure estate providers. The report is produced by the Statistics and Analysis Team in the Youth Justice Board (YJB).

Data are provided on the trends of stop and searches, arrests, first time entrants, children cautioned or sentenced, proven offences, criminal history, remand, those in youth custody, proven reoffending and comparisons to the adult system.

The report is published, along with supplementary tables for each chapter, additional annexes, local level data, including in an open and accessible format, an infographic and local level maps.

Pre-release access

Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons (reflecting the cross-departmental responsibility for children committing crime and reoffending):

Ministry of Justice

Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Minister of State, Deputy Director, Youth Justice Policy, Head of Early Intervention, Prevention and Community Justice, Head of Youth Custody Policy, Resettlement, YOT Performance and Funding, Strategy and Planning & Performance, Head of Reducing Reoffending and Probation Data & Statistics, Reoffending and Probation Statistics Lead, Team leader - PNC and Criminal Histories team, and the relevant special advisers, private secretaries, analysts and press officers.

Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS)

Youth Custody Service (YCS) Executive Director, YCS Deputy Director, Strategy and Commissioning, YCS Head of Information and Performance and any relevant analysts.

YJB

YJB Chair, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Director of Business Intelligence and Insights, Head of Statistics and Analysis, Head of Communications and any relevant analysts and communication officers.

These statistics concentrate on the flow of children (aged 10 to 17) through the youth justice system in England and Wales. The data described comes from various sources including the Home Office (HO), Youth Custody Service (YCS), Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Youth Justice Services and youth secure estate providers. The report is produced by the Statistics and Analysis Team in the Youth Justice Board (YJB).

Details of the number of children arrested are provided along with proven offences, criminal history, characteristics of children, details of the number of children sentenced, those on remand, those in custody, reoffending and behaviour management.

The report is published, along with supplementary tables for each chapter, additional annexes, local level data, including in an open and accessible format, an infographic and local level maps.

Pre-release access

Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons (reflecting the cross-departmental responsibility for children committing crime and reoffending):

Ministry of Justice

Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Minister of State, Deputy Director, Youth Justice Policy, Head of Reducing Reoffending and Probation Data & Statistics, Head of PNC/Criminal Histories Team, Head of News, Deputy Head of News, Lead Psychologist and Reducing Reoffending, Policy lead on YJB and Thematics and the relevant special advisers, private secretaries, statisticians, analyst and press officers.

Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS)

Head of YCS Information team, Head of briefing, and relevant statisticians and analyst.

YJB

YJB Board Chair, Chief Executive, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, Director of Business Intelligence and Insights, Head of Statistics and Analysis, Head of Communications and the relevant statisticians, analyst and communication officers.

The report presents key statistics on activity in the criminal justice system for England and Wales. It provides information up to the year ending December 2019 with accompanying commentary, analysis and presentation of longer term trends.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused MoJ to have to change its data gathering, access and release practices, focusing efforts on priority analysis and statistics. Our statement explains this further and in particular, we are pausing access to the Police National Computer, to minimise non-essential travel by our analysts. In line with guidance from the Office for Statistics Regulation, the decision has been made to delay the publishing of cautions data and the offending histories chapter of this publication. We will keep users updated of any further changes via our published release calendar.

The COVID-19 pandemic guidance on travel and social distancing has restricted access to some IT systems, so we are delaying the release of the detailed data tools for 2019 to finalise validation and quality assurance processes. We hope to be able to publish these tools on 28th May. Note that the impact of these quality assurance processes is likely to be very minor at an aggregate level and so should not affect the contents of the published bulletin or headline overview tables.

Statistician’s comment

The number of defendants prosecuted has fallen over the last decade – and figures published today show a further slight decrease in 2019, though there were increases in some of the most serious offence groups, in particular violence. The increase in prosecutions and convictions for violence was driven by the legislation that introduced the new offence of ‘assaults on emergency workers’ from November 2018. The publication also shows that custody rates, which have risen over the last decade, fell slightly in the last year, in part because of the change in the offence mix – with a rise in the proportion of all sentences that were for offences which are less likely to result in a custodial sentence.

Although we often consider crimes to correlate with prosecutions, we would not expect prosecutions to move directly in line with the ONS published police recorded crime series, or Crime Survey for England and Wales as only those crimes that result in a charge are likely to flow into courts – in addition criminal court prosecutions cover a much broader range of offences than police recorded crime or the survey.

The period of data covered by this report covers calendar year 2019, so court activity will not have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We will consider how we can best cover this in future publications. In the meantime, HMCTS publish regular management information on court activity here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmcts-management-information.

Pre-release access

The bulletin is produced and handled by the ministry’s analytical professionals and production staff. Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons:

Ministry of Justice

Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice; Minister of State for Prisons and Probation; 2 Parliamentary Under Secretary of States; Lords spokesperson; Principal Private Secretary; Deputy Principal Private Secretary; 3 Private Secretaries; 4 Assistant Private Secretaries; Permanent Secretary; Head of Permanent Secretary’s Office; Special Advisor; Head of News; 2 Deputy Heads of News; 2 Press Officers; Director, Family and Criminal Justice Policy; Director of Data and Analytical Services; Chief Statistician; Director General, Policy, Communications and Analysis Group; Deputy Director, Bail, Sentencing and Release Policy; Section Head, Criminal Court Policy; Director, Offender and Youth Justice Policy; Director, Offender and Youth Justice Policy; Statistician, Youth Justice Board; Data Analyst, Youth Justice Board; Head of Courts and Sentencing, Youth Justice Policy; Deputy Director, Crime; Crime Service Manager (Case Progression) - Courts and Tribunals Development; Deputy Director, Legal Operations - Courts & Tribunals Development Directorate; Head of Criminal Law policy; 6 Policy Advisors.

Home Office

Home Secretary; Private Secretary to the Home Secretary; Deputy Principal Private Secretary to the Home Secretary; Permanent Secretary, Home Office; Assistant Private Secretary to the Home Office Permanent Secretary; Min

The report presents key statistics on activity in the criminal justice system for England and Wales. It provides information up to the year ending March 2020 with accompanying commentary, analysis and presentation of longer term trends.

Please note that the decision has been made to delay the offending histories and out of court disposals components of this publication. In line with https://osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Regulatory-guidance_changing-methods_Coronavirus.pdf" class="govuk-link">guidance from the Office for Statistics Regulation, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused MoJ to have to change its data gathering, access and release practices, focusing efforts on priority analysis and statistics. In particular, we paused access to the Police National Computer, on which these components rely, to minimise non-essential travel by our analysts. We will keep users updated of any further changes via our published release calendar. We will be publishing a response to our February consultation on changes to the frequency and timing of the offending histories components, setting out when these will be published in the future.

Statistician’s comment:

The number of defendants prosecuted has fallen over the last decade and figures published today continue that trend, with a slight decrease in the year ending March 2020. The figures released today cover the period to the end of March 2020 and any COVID-19 impacts, for example on the level of prosecutions, are likely to be small. For more information about COVID-19 impacts on courts, see the HMCTS regular management information publication: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmcts-management-information.

There have been increases in prosecutions for some of the most serious offence groups in the latest year, in particular violence, drug offences, robbery and sexual offences. The increase in prosecutions and convictions for violence continue to be driven by the legislation that introduced the new offence of ‘assaults on emergency workers’ from November 2018, while the increases for other offences groups are driven by an increase in charges brought forward by the police.

The publication also shows the different pattern for custody rates across offences – with a continued increase in custody rates for the most serious, indictable, offences, alongside a reduction in rates for summary offences. Average custodial sentence lengths continue to rise and were the highest in a decade. Although we often consider crimes to correlate with prosecutions, we would not expect prosecutions to move directly in line with the ONS published police recorded crime series, or Crime Survey for England and Wales as only those crimes that result in a charge are likely to flow into courts – in addition criminal court prosecutions cover a much broader range of offences than police recorded crime or the survey.

Pre-release access

The bulletin is produced and handled by the ministry’s analytical professionals and production staff. Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons:

Ministry of Justice

Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice; Minister of State for Prisons and Probation; 2 Parliamentary Under Secretary of States; Lords spokesperson; Principal Private Secretary; Deputy Principal Private Secretary; 3 Private Secretaries; 4 Assistant Private Secretaries; Permanent Secretary; Head of Permanent Secretary’s Office; Special Advisor; Head of News; 2 Deputy Heads of News; 3 Press Officers; Director, Family and Criminal Justice Policy; Director of Data and Analytical Services; Chief Statistician; Director General, Policy, Communications and Analysis Group; Deputy Director, Bail, Sentencing and Release Policy; Section Head, Criminal Court Policy; Director, Offender and Youth Justice Policy; Statistician, Youth Justice Board; Data Analyst, Youth Justice Board; Deputy Director, Crime; Crime Service Manager (Case Progression) - Courts and Tribunals Development; Deputy Director, Legal Operations - Courts & Tribunals Development Directorate; Head of Criminal Law policy; 2 Policy Managers – Youth Courts and Sentencing; 6 Policy Advisors; 2 Justice Statistics analysts; Head of Data Innovation, Analysis and Linking; Head of PNC/Offender Histories Analysis; Head of Criminal Courts Statistics.

Home Office

Home Secretary; Private Secretary to the Home Secretary; Deputy Principal Private Secretary to the Home Secretary; Permanent Secretary, Home Office; Assistant Private Secretary to the Home Office Permanent Secretary; Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service; Assistant Private Secretary

These statistics concentrate on the flow of young people (aged 10-17) through the Youth Justice System in England and Wales. The data described comes from various sources including the Home Office (HO), Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Youth Offending Teams (YOTs) and youth secure estate providers. The report is produced by the Analysis team and the Information team in the Youth Justice Board (YJB) under the direction of the Chief Statistician in MOJ.

Details of the number of young people arrested are provided along with proven offences, criminal history, characteristics of young people, details of the number of young people sentenced, those on remand, those in custody, reoffending and behaviour management.

The report and executive summary are published, along with supplementary tables for each chapter and some regional information.

Pre-release access

Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons (reflecting the cross-departmental responsibility for juvenile crime and reoffending):

MOJ:

Secretary of State, Minister of State, Permanent Secretary, Director of Criminal Policy Group, Head of Joint Youth Justice Unit, Programme Director Youth Justice Analysis, Chief Statistician and the relevant special adviser, policy officer and press officer

HO:

Minister of State, and press officer

YJB:

Chair of the YJB, Head of YJB, Director of Operations, Director of Partnerships and Performance, Head of YJB Wales, Head of YJB Communications and the relevant policy officer and press officer