Scores of young offenders in Portsmouth are breaking the law again within a year

CALLS have been made for an overhaul to the criminal justice system after figures revealed more than half of young offenders in Portsmouth go on to break the law again within a year.
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The government is being urged to avoid criminalising children by diverting them from the justice system where possible, amid calls for the age from when a child can be arrested and charged to be raised.

Ministry of Justice data reveals that 213 offenders aged under 18 in Portsmouth either left custody, received a non-custodial conviction or were cautioned in 2017-18.

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Of those, 60 per cent went on to commit another offence within 12 months. That's up from the 57 per cent rate recorded for the previous year's cohort.

Councillor Donna Jones, Conservative candidate for Hampshire police and crime commissioner. 

Picture: Keith Woodland (091119-107)Councillor Donna Jones, Conservative candidate for Hampshire police and crime commissioner. 

Picture: Keith Woodland (091119-107)
Councillor Donna Jones, Conservative candidate for Hampshire police and crime commissioner. Picture: Keith Woodland (091119-107)

Between them, the 127 juvenile re-offenders racked up 622 new offences – an average of 4.9 each.

Portsmouth Tory leader Donna Jones, who is vying to become Hampshire’s new police and crime commissioner, said ‘more needs to be done’ to reduce re-offending rates.

She added: ‘The key to reducing crime levels is to prevent young people getting involved in criminal activities in the first place. For those that have, it's about engaging them to make sure they don’t re-offend.

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‘The employment opportunities, for a young person who is convicted of multiple offences reduces dramatically. These crimes committed in adolescence can have an effect on the rest of a young person’s life.’

Children in England and Wales are deemed to have criminal responsibility from the age of 10, meaning they can be arrested and brought to court for committing a crime.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission last year called for the age to be raised ‘to stop very young children being exposed to the harmful effects of detention’.

Nationally, 38 per cent of juvenile offenders in 2017-18 committed another crime within a year – compared to 41 per cent from 2016-17 – amid a steep fall in the number of juvenile first-time entrants to the criminal justice system.

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However, Dr Tim Bateman, chairman of the National Association for Youth Justice, warned the falling numbers of juvenile offenders and re-offenders nationally is only partly down to children being less likely to break the law.

He added: ‘What we know is that drawing children into the justice system actually tends to increase lawbreaking.

‘If we want to reduce the level of problematic behaviour by teenagers, then we need to be able to keep them in education and provide them with interesting activities which they can afford when they are not in school.

‘We also need to reduce levels of poverty so that fewer children suffer various forms of victimisation – which is associated with later violent behaviour.’

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An MoJ spokesman said: ‘The number of further crimes committed by young offenders has fallen by 80 per cent in the last decade as a result of our work to support, rather than criminalise, children falling foul of the law.’