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Labour's youth crime drive 'less than impressive'
The government's 10-year drive to cut youth crime has had no measurable impact and missed many of its own targets, an independent study said yesterday.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:08 May 22, 2008
London: The government's 10-year drive to cut youth crime has had no measurable impact and missed many of its own targets, an independent study said yesterday.
The proportion of young people telling an annual crime survey whether they had committed an offence in the past year had remained stable at around 26 per cent, said the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, based at King's College London.
That was despite a rise in youth justice budgets in real terms of 45 per cent, it said.
"The government's record on youth crime and tackling the multiple needs of children caught up in the youth justice system is less impressive than many would have expected," said report co-author Enver Solomon.
The report said the government had funded much of the increase in youth justice spending by taking it from social budgets that might have helped to prevent young people offending in the first place.
Nearly two-thirds of the youth justice budget was being spent on locking up young people, it said.
Youth Justice Minister David Hanson said that while self-reported levels of youth crime were stable, the government had succeeded in reducing reoffending rates by 17 per cent over five years.
He conceded that a large proportion of his budget was spent on custody, but said this represented only three per cent of those dealt with by the justice system.
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