Number of children arrested by Essex Police falls in last decade
The number of young people being arrested has dropped significantly.
Child arrests by Essex Police have fallen by 77 percent in the last decade, according to new figures released today.
Essex Police made 1,805 child arrests in 2020. This compares to 2,055 the year before and 7,739 in 2010.
In 2010, the Howard League began working with police forces in England and Wales to reduce the number of child arrests, to ensure that hundreds of thousands of boys and girls didn't start life with a criminal record.
Data from police forces show that the number of people under 17 reduced by 13 percent nationally in the last year, from 72,475 in 2019 to 63,272 in 2020.
Academic research has shown that each contact a child has with the criminal justice system drags them deeper into it, leading to more crime.
Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Every child deserves the chance to grow and fulfil their potential, and we must do all we can to ensure that they are not held back by a criminal record.
“A decade of success for the Howard League’s programme to reduce child arrests has given hundreds of thousands of children a brighter future. Essex Police has made giant strides, diverting resources to tackling serious crime instead of arresting children unnecessarily, and this approach will help to make our communities safer.
“As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, and as police forces recruit thousands more officers, the challenge now is to build on this success and reduce arrests still further. Keeping up the momentum will enable even more children to thrive.”
As in previous years, the Howard League asked police forces to provide figures broken down by age, gender and ethnicity. Detailed analysis of the data will be published in a briefing later this year.
Police forces achieved a significant reduction in arrests of primary school-aged children – boys and girls aged 11 and under – from 392 in 2019 to 261 in 2020.
But the Howard League found no obvious improvement in the way police recorded ethnicity. There were almost 5,200 arrests in 2020 for which the ethnicity of the child was not recorded.