The Home Office announced last week that reoffending rates have dropped by 22.5 per cent compared with 1997 when Labour came to power and started reforming the youth justice system. That is even better than the first stage of figures from the study a year ago, which showed a 15 per cent drop.
Hilary Benn, minister for prisons and probation, was over the moon.
"It is still very early days for some of the changes to the system. But on the basis of the first two sets of figures, the results are very encouraging," he says.
Benn puts the fall down to the new system of reprimands and final warnings that have replaced repeated cautioning of juvenile offenders, along with the work of youth offending teams.
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