Number of children arrested by Derbyshire Police falls by 79% in a decade

For the last decade, the Howard League for Penal Reform has been working with police forces across England and Wales to reduce arrests of children, helping to ensure that hundreds of thousands of youngsters do not have their lives blighted by a criminal record.

Derbyshire Police made 895 arrests of children in 2019. This compares to the 4,194 arrests recorded by the force back in 2010, when the Howard League campaign began.

The county’s police force was one of seven across the country that recorded a decrease in child arrests of 10 per cent or more in 2019 as opposed to the previous year. Derbyshire o fficers arrested 994 chldren in 2018.

Research findings from the charity shows that there has been a 71 per cent reduction nationwide in the number of arrests of children aged 17 and under – from 245,763 in 2010 to 71,885 in 2019. Every police force in England and Wales has achieved a reduction in arrests over this period, with all but three reducing their arrest rate by more than half.

Now the Howard League is encouraging police forces to focus on areas where even more could be done to prevent children being arrested unnecessarily – particularly Black children and children from minority ethnic backgrounds, victims of child criminal exploitation, and children living in residential care.

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.

““The Howard League’s programme to reduce child arrests has shown what can be achieved by working together. Police forces have diverted resources to tackling serious crime instead of arresting children unnecessarily, and this means hundreds of thousands of boys and girls can look forward to a brighter future.”