Hampshire PCC concern over child crime
Donna Jones says the most criminalised people are under 18s
Hampshire’s police commissioner said the most criminalised people in the communities are under 18.
According to the commissioner, children as young as 16 are currently committing serious offences such as murder, attempted murder, burglaries, car thefts, drug trafficking, and even stabbings outside schools.
At the police and crime panel (July 28), Southampton City Council councillor Jacqui Rayment said that there is an “optics perception” that young people are allowed to “get away” when committing offences because of their age.
Cllr Rayment pointed out that the group that is “doing everything” in Southampton consists of young people from all school ages; “they aren’t even in university or college age”, she said.
Police and Crime Commissioner, Donna Jones, said that the most criminalised people in the communities committing serious offences are people under 18, from as early as 16 or even younger.
“There are committing murder, attempting murder, burglaries, stealing cars, running sophisticated drug businesses or stabbing outside schools. They are really serious offences being committed by 16, 17, sometimes 18-year-olds, and sometimes even younger.”
Although some progress has been made in the criminal justice system to tackle the problem, the commissioner said that the system “has not caught up with the level of harm coming out of people under the age of 18 as quickly as it should have done”.
“They’re getting there now. There’s been a lot of lobbying around this issue”, she said
However, Ms Jones stressed that as a society, “we need to grip” the problem in the early years, otherwise “we are setting them up to fail in adult life.
Ms Jones said: “We really need to grip this a lot more in the under-18s because the harm that we’re seeing coming out of that cohort is extraordinary at the moment and particularly in Southampton.
“I feel like if we don’t grip it when they’re children, we are then setting them up to fail in adult life, aren’t we?
“We’ve got to do more now.”