Police and crime commissioner candidates urged to end criminalisation of care-experienced children

The National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) has today (24 February) launched its Trouble with the Law campaign and is urging all candidates to recognise and support care-experienced children and young people.

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Latest figures from the Youth Justice Board (YJB) show that care-experienced children make up half of those placed in youth custody. 

Meanwhile, children in care in England are six times more likely than other young people to be cautioned or convicted of a crime. 

NYAS’s new campaign highlights how care-experienced young people are often overlooked in local police and crime plans. 

The work of police and crime commissioners can have a huge impact on the most vulnerable children, and the campaign demonstrates how critical it is that plans are made to support them, the service says.

It adds that: “Across the UK, around one in four of all identified or suspected child victims of trafficking were missing from care.”

The campaign, launched ahead of the police and crime commissioner elections which are due to take place on 6 May across 40 police force areas in England and Wales, seeks a child-centred approach to policing, where victims of exploitation are protected and supported, not criminalised.

It asks candidates to pledge to:

• Work to keep care-experienced young people out of the criminal justice system.

• Never make policies about young people, without young people.

• Protect victims of exploitation and missing children.

• Campaign to end the life-long stigma of criminal records.

Rita Waters, NYAS group chief executive, said: “Police and crime commissioners have a unique and vast opportunity to change young people’s lives for the better. 

“For too long, care-experienced children and young people have been more likely than their peers to be in contact with the criminal justice system. We are asking candidates to pledge to work with young people for a better future.”

The campaign comes following the second reading of a bill in the House of Commons calling for all children accused of committing a crime before their 18th birthday to be tried in the youth courts.