Child arrests by North Yorkshire Police reduced by 80 per cent in a decade
900 were detained in 2020 - compared with over 4,500 in 2010
Last updated 23rd Aug 2021
Arrests of children by North Yorkshire Police have been reduced by 80 per cent over the last decade, figures reveal today (Monday 23 August) in another major step forward for a successful Howard League for Penal Reform campaign.
North Yorkshire Police made 905 child arrests in 2020.
This compares to 1,065 the year before and 4,525 in 2010, the year that the Howard League campaign began.
Since 2010, the Howard League has been working with police forces across England and Wales to reduce child arrests, helping to ensure that hundreds of thousands of boys and girls do not have their lives blighted by a criminal record.
Data provided by police forces across the country show that arrests of children aged 17 and under were reduced by 13 per cent last year – from 72,475 in 2019 to 63,272 in 2020.
Caught up in youth crime
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.
North Yorkshire Police response
Detective Superintendent Allan Harder, North Yorkshire Police’s head of safeguarding, said: “The year-on-year reduction in children being arrested is very good news and shows that the measures we have put in place and with our partner agencies are working.
“Criminalising children has a significant impact upon them at the time, later in their adult lives, and for society. For those reasons we and our partner agencies will do everything we can to prevent children and young people from entering the criminal justice system.
“Importantly we all have a part to play in nurturing and supporting our children to ensure they do not find themselves in such a position in the first place.”