At the end of June a total of 1,690 under-18s were in secure children’s homes, secure training centres or young offender institutions, compared to 1,744 at the end of the previous month, a fall of 54.
The custodial population including 18-year-olds stood at 1,868 at the end of June compared to 1,941 the previous month, a fall of 73.
Tim Bateman, criminologist at the University of Bedfordshire, said he believes the ongoing reduction may be down to the introduction of police targets to reduce the number of first time entrants to the youth justice system.
This, he says, has delayed the age many young people first have contact with the youth justice system or end up in court.
“We know from a variety of research that children get locked up not for serious offences, but because of persistence,” he said.
“If you delay children coming in to the court system through mechanisms like triage and the introduction of a first time entrants target, you allow a lot less time for them to accrue a big list of previous convictions before they reach 18 and are classed as an adult.”
In June 2008, the number of under-18s in custody stood at 3,072.
