The number of children in custody in England and Wales has fallen sharply over the last decade. The population of the children’s secure estate stood at 3012 in April 2008 but had declined to 804 in April 2019, a reduction of 73 per cent. A report published by the Griffin Society in May 2019 points out that the downward trend for girls has been significantly more pronounced than that for boys, falling by 86 per cent, from 221 to 30, over the same period. This contrasts with trends over the previous decade which saw rises in the use of custodial sentencing for all children but with the increase for girls outstripping, by some margin, than for boys: a rise of 365 per cent against 68 per cent between 1993 and 2002. Over the next 4 years, the number of girls sentenced to imprisonment grew by a quarter, while the incarceration of boys remained relatively stable. There is a general consensus that the more recent contraction in the numbers of children deprived of their liberty, by diverting many of those with less complex needs, has led to a concentration of children in custody with more entrenched patterns of offending who require higher levels of support and may be more challenging. However, the published information specifically in relation to girls in the secure estate is limited, and the implications for this cohort of reducing levels of incarceration are rarely explored. The Griffin Society report goes some way to filling that gap through an analysis of previously unpublished case-level data, provided by the placement team within the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales. The information derives from Placement Information Forms completed by the relevant youth offending team prior to the custodial episode and captures all girls in custody on 1 April 2014 and all admissions of girls to the secure estate over the subsequent 2 years. The figures are for the number of admissions rather than individual girls, some of whom may have experienced more than one episode in the secure estate over the relevant time frame. Moreover, the data relate to throughput rather than the snapshot figures for the population of the custodial estate on a single day that appear in the monthly statistics on youth custody published regularly by the Ministry of Justice.

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青年正义新闻

在过去十年中，英格兰和威尔士在押儿童的数量急剧下降。2008 年 4 月，儿童安全庄园的人口为 3012 人，但在 2019 年 4 月下降到 804 人，减少了 73%。格里芬协会在 2019 年 5 月发布的一份报告指出，女孩的下降趋势明显比男孩更明显，同期下降了 86%，从 221 人下降到 30 人。这与过去十年的趋势形成鲜明对比，过去十年对所有儿童使用监禁判决的情况有所增加，但女孩的增长在一定程度上超过男孩：从 1993 年到 2002 年的 68% 上升了 365% . 在接下来的 4 年里，被判入狱的女孩人数增加了四分之一，而男孩的监禁保持相对稳定。普遍的共识是，最近被剥夺自由的儿童人数减少，转移了许多需求不太复杂的人，导致被拘留的儿童集中，犯罪模式更加根深蒂固，需要更高水平的支持并且可能更具挑战性。然而，特别是关于安全屋中女孩的公开信息是有限的，并且很少探讨降低监禁水平对这群人的影响。格里芬协会的报告通过对英格兰和威尔士青年司法委员会内部安置小组提供的先前未发表的案例级数据的分析，在某种程度上填补了这一空白。该信息来自相关青少年犯罪小组在羁押事件发生之前填写的安置信息表，并记录了 2014 年 4 月 1 日被羁押的所有女童以及随后 2 年内所有女童进入安全庄园的情况。这些数字是针对入学人数而不是个别女孩的，其中一些人可能在相关时间范围内在安全庄园中经历了不止一次事件。此外，这些数据与吞吐量有关，而不是出现在司法部定期发布的关于青年羁押的月度统计数据中的单日羁押场所人口的快照数字。