At first glance the link between young people not voting, and young people committing crimes, is not immediately obvious. But Bridget Prentice, MP for Lewisham East, believes they are two sides of the same problem.
Responsibility for criminal justice transferred from the Home Office to the Department for Constitutional Affairs - which has since been renamed the Ministry of Justice - earlier this year. As a minister in the department, Prentice already had responsibility for democratic engagement, but asked for the youth justice brief.
"I think there is a connection between people who have become so disaffected that they end up in the criminal justice system, and people who are not engaged in their communities," she says.
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