Dorset PCC blames cuts to youth services for spike in youth crime
Fiona Simpson
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Cuts to youth services in Dorset has led to an increase in youth crime, the county’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) has said.
Despite a decline in the number of first-time entrants to the youth custody estate nationally over the last decade, numbers in Dorset have increased year-on-year since 2016.
Statistics show 344 young people per 100,000 entered the youth justice system in Dorset for the first time in 2017/18, compared with a national average of 237.
In a report to Dorset Council’s police and crime panel, PCC Martyn Underhill blamed this increase on cuts to youth services across England and Wales.
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Citing a recent YMCA report which shows that youth services have lost 70 per cent of funding since 2010/11 - the equivalent of £1.4bn - the report states: “The PCC remains cautious about the current provision of youth services in Dorset and acknowledges the accepted evidence base that has linked this reduction to the challenges of youth offending and serious youth violence (particularly knife crime) that have been the feature of many towns and cities across the country in recent years.”
It adds that “in the absence of adequate provision, some challenges in relation to youth antisocial behaviour and low-level offending have emerged.”
Underhill concludes that “more needs to be done” to address the link between cuts to youth services and an increase in children entering the criminal justice system in Dorset and has called for “further prevention and diversionary activity” across the county.
In 2016, the former Dorset County Council announced plans to remove funding from 22 council-run youth centres across the county in a bid to save £1m. The move almost halved the council’s £2.2m budget for youth services.
In March 2019, Dorset Council replaced the former county council, the Purbeck, East Dorset, West Dorset and North Dorset district councils, and Weymouth and Portland Borough Council, while Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole councils joined together to form the second new authority.
