Data published today shows immediate custodial sentences were given to 13 per cent of 10- to 17-year-olds for knife possession in January to March 2017, compared with only six per cent in the same months of 2008.
Conversely, the proportion of juvenile offenders receiving a caution has fallen by 19 percentage points over the same period.
By March this year, 28 per cent of young people found in possession of knives received a reprimand, warning or youth caution, compared with 47 per cent in the first quarter of 2008.
Overall, the number of offences between the two years has fallen, from 1,633 in January to March 2008 to 1,150 in the same quarter of 2017 - a fall of 483.
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