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Measurement of the Extent of Youth Crime
in Scotland
1 Introduction
Aims of the study
1.1 The study brief set out the Executive's aspiration
to develop an economic cost of youth crime measure to
assist in the evaluation of the effectiveness of projects
and programmes in this area. The Executive recognised,
however, that the initial step in this process was to
quantify the overall extent of youth crime, as information
on the extent of youth crime was recognised to be partial,
ad hoc and fragmented. For the purposes of this study,
young people are defined as those 21 years of age and
under.
1.2 The overarching aims of the study are:
- to provide a clear understanding of the extent of
youth crime in Scotland by providing an accurate
picture of the crimes committed by juvenile criminals
and the numbers involved; and
- to further research into the fears and perceptions
of youth crime.
1.3 A two-stage approach was envisaged, with the
specific tasks identified. The output of the first scoping
stage of the study was to be a framework that would be
utilised in the second stage to provide estimates of youth
crime and an overview of the fear of youth crime. The work
on Stage 1 was presented in an interim report to the
Scottish Executive in August 2003. This is the final
report.
Stage 1
- Review and explore all potential sources of
information on youth crime and fear of youth
crime.
- Resolve definitional issues relating to youth crime
and anti-social behaviour.
- Identify ways of measuring perceptions and fears of
youth crime.
- Estimate the differences between reported and
unreported youth crime.
Stage 2
- Provide estimates of the number of crimes committed
by young people and the numbers of juveniles involved,
as well as providing an estimate of the number of
youths committing crimes across a range of crime
categories.
- Provide an overview of the perceptions and fears of
youth crime in Scotland. Fears and perceptions should
include the following:
1. fear of actual youth crime;
2. insecurities and perceptions of risk of
experiencing or becoming a victim of youth crime;
3. fear of low level crime and disorder;
4. fear and perceptions of the implications of
anti-social behaviour of youths (e.g. groups on street
corners, swearing in streets); and
5. perceptions of the impact of youth crime on
the community and how perceptions about the impact can
influence the levels of juvenile crime.
- Provide a guide to local youth justice teams on the
measures and perceptions of youth crime to allow them
to develop and apply the information locally.
Structure of this report
1.4 This report seeks to fulfil the remit set out in the
brief by:
- providing contextual overviews of youth crime,
anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime;
- estimating the amount of crime committed by young
people by crime type, gender and age group using a
mixture of data obtained on recorded crime, court
proceedings, and SCRA referrals, as well as data from
previous research studies;
- providing details on the key indicators of
anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime, including
discussion on the limitations of existing data sources
and of the impacts of both phenomena; and
- providing detailed local authority estimates that
can serve as a guide to local youth justice teams are
included in Appendix 1.
1.5
Section 2 of the report provides an
overview of each of the relevant social phenomena, youth
crime, anti-social behaviour and fear of crime. It
discusses the problems of definition and other technical
issues involved in attempting to measure these
phenomena.
1.6
Section 3 briefly summarises all the key
data sources and previous research used in producing this
report.
1.7
Section 4 provides a series of estimates
of the extent of youth crime by crime type, age and
gender.
1.8
Section 5 considers the scale of the
problem of anti-social behaviour by young people by using a
number of indicators obtained from secondary data sources
and previous research. It also discusses the limitations of
these sources and looks at the possible impacts of this
behaviour.
1.9
Section 6 considers the fear of youth
crime, again based on a number of indicators from previous
research. The impacts of this phenomenon are also
discussed.
1.10
Section 7 sets out some broad conclusions
about the study findings and the limitations of the
data.
Method
1.11 The method employed in Stage 1, described in the
interim report, involved a comprehensive review of
available literature which might inform our attempts to
define and/or measure youth crime, anti-social behaviour,
fear of crime and unreported crime.
1.12 We also met a number of individuals in the Scottish
Executive and other agencies who are responsible for
collecting and analysing data on youth crime and
anti-social behaviour:
- Joe Curran, Head of Criminal Research, Criminal
Justice Social Research Team, Scottish Executive;
- Sandy Taylor, Criminal Justice Social Research
Team, Scottish Executive;
- Katy Barratt, Criminal Justice Social Research
Team, Scottish Executive;
- Tom McNamara, Policy Officer, Young People and
Looked After Children Division, Scottish
Executive;
- Venetia Radmore, Research Manager, Justice
Department, Scottish Executive;
- Alan Miller, Principal Reporter, Scottish
Children's Reporters Association; and
- Gillian Henderson, Information and Research
Manager, Scottish Children's Reporter
Administration.
1.13 We enquired about the use of the following data
sources:
- police force data;
- Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
data;
- Scottish Children's Reporter Administrator's
data;
- Scottish Criminal Records Office data;
- Scottish Prison Service data; and
- Criminal Justice Social Work Statistics.
1.14 After careful consideration of the available data
and the views of key personnel, we decided that there was
enough information to allow us to estimate levels of youth
crime, but that anti-social behaviour and the fear of crime
would benefit more from a "key indicators" approach, where
we would attempt to analyse perceptions of the prevalence
phenomena rather than to provide actual levels of
incidents.
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