Child Offenders 2015 – 2020 (1135A/20)
Request
For the offences of Murder, Manslaughter, Common Assault, ABH, GBH, and offensive weapon for children under the age of 18, by calendar year
Q1- The number of individual children who have been arrested in connection with a crime since 2015, broken down by calendar year
Q2- The number of individual children who have been charged in connection with a crime since 2015, broken down by calendar year
Q3- The age of the youngest person arrested in connection with a crime during this period and the alleged offence
Q4- The age of the youngest person charged in connection with a crime during this period and the alleged offence
Response
Q1: The number of individual children who have been arrested in connection with a crime since 2015, broken down by calendar year
| Year | Arrests |
| 2015 | 869 |
| 2016 | 840 |
| 2017 | 872 |
| 2018 | 811 |
| 2019 | 876 |
| 2020 | 744 |
| Grand Total | 5012 |
Q2- The number of individual children who have been charged in connection with a crime since 2015, broken down by calendar year
| Year | Charged |
| 2015 | 216 |
| 2016 | 189 |
| 2017 | 180 |
| 2018 | 175 |
| 2019 | 160 |
| 2020 | 124 |
| Grand Total | 1044 |
Q3- The age of the youngest person arrested in connection with a crime during this period and the alleged offence
10 years and 7 months = common assault
Q4- The age of the youngest person charged in connection with a crime during this period and the alleged offence
10 years and 7 months common assault
Please note that these data should be interpreted with caution. Comparing numbers of incidents/crimes can be misleading and does not necessarily indicate the likelihood of someone being a victim of crime. In addition, the number of incidents/crimes recorded in an area over a period of time can be influenced by a number of factors. Consequently statistics on incidents/crimes for one period may not necessarily be a good indicator of future incidents in that area.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.
As recommended as good practice by the Information Commissioner’s Office a version of this response may be published on the West Midlands Police website.
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