Graham, Tom and Ian

Your Lib Dem team for Cheadle West & Gatley Learn more

Stockport third best in the country at keeping young people away from crime

by Lib Dem team on 24 November, 2014

As we work to cut crime, we know one of the most important aspects is to stop young people being ensnared in the criminal system in the first place. Once a young person is on that road, it becomes a whole lot more difficult to get them off it.

This is measured nationally as the number of First Time Entrants into the criminal justice system:

An offence is defined as a first offence if it results in the person receiving their first reprimand, warning, caution or court conviction – i.e. they have no previous criminal history recorded on the PNC.

Stockport now 3rd best performing authority in England, outperforming of all other GM and north west authorities. Just 55 young people entered the criminal justice system from Stockport in the year to June 2014, down from 77 the previous year.

The two authorities above Stockport are Surrey and Richmond upon Thames.

The figures for first time entrants into the criminal justice system have been falling across the country since their high point in 2005, but they’ve fallen much faster in Stockport: by over 90%. That’s down to the innovative partnerships we’ve forged between the Council, Police and other agencies.

And no, the fall doesn’t mean that the Police simply aren’t catching people – we know from other data that’s not the case. It’s a combination of fewer crimes being committed and very minor offences being dealt with more appropriately.

Once someone has gone to prison, it becomes much harder to rehabilitate them and help them turn their life around, so it’s promising too that fewer young people across the country are in prison today than a decade ago: down from over 3,000 to around 1,000.

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