§ 36. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the amount of juvenile delinquency during each of the last ten years, indicating the causes and his plans for dealing with it.
§ Mr. RentonI will, with permission circulate statistics of juvenile delinquency in the OFFICIAL REPORT. AS for the causes of delinquency and measures for dealing with it, I would refer the hon. and learned Member to the White Paper on "Penal Practice in a Changing Society" (Cmd. 645).
§ Mr. HughesIn answer to the first part of the Question, does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that punishment after the crime is only part of the problem and a great part of the problem is the ascertaining of predisposing causes, such as broken homes, greed, lust and things of that sort? What steps are the Government taking to ascertain those predisposing causes?
§ Mr. RentonThe causes of crime are greatly variable and some are imponderable. Some of them also are beyond the scope of Government action, but, if the hon. and learned Member studies the White Paper, he will find a section of it devoted to research, of which a great deal is going on. It is all set out in one of the appendices.
§ Following is the information:
§ The following table gives index figures, based on 1938 = 100, for the numbers in different age groups, both sexes combined, found guilty of indictable offences per unit of population in the age group since 1949:—
| Year | Age Group | |||
| Under 14 | 14 and under 17 | 17 and under 21 | ||
| 1938 | … | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| 1949 | … | 173 | 155 | 122 |
| 1950 | … | 182 | 160 | 129 |
| 1951 | … | 194 | 183 | 148 |
| 1952 | … | 174 | 179 | 151 |
| 1953 | … | 146 | 152 | 133 |
| 1954 | … | 125 | 143 | 127 |
| 1955 | … | 119 | 146 | 136 |
| 1956 | … | 123 | 161 | 159 |
| 1957 | … | 137 | 186 | 195 |
| 1958 | … | 152 | 207 | 248 |