Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many children currently in (1) secure children's homes, (2) young offenders' institutions, and (3) secure training centres, have previous convictions.
Answered on
30 July 2014
Reducing reoffending and better rehabilitation of young offenders are key priorities for the Government and we are committed to providing young people with the support they need to achieve this.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) holds information on previous convictions for young people who offend, but this is not held by individual establishment or by sector for the youth secure estate.
The Youth Justice Board (YJB) Placements Team holds the assessment record of each young person currently in custody, which would indicate whether or not they have a previous conviction. However, this is management information used to inform individual custody placement decisions. It is not intended for official reporting purposes and is not therefore of the same nature as offending history data published in the MoJ official statistics report: ‘Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly Bulletin’, which is sourced from the Police National Computer (PNC).
Statistics on offending history for juvenile offenders are published by the MoJ on a quarterly basis in the ‘Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly Bulletin’ at the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-december-2013
The MoJ and YJB are investigating the feasibility of linking between YJB administrative systems and the PNC to establish offending history by secure estate sector.