§ Mr. AllanTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate he has made of the percentage of young people who have been victims of crime; and if he will make a statement. [40023]
§ Mr. MichaelWhile it is difficult to make a dependable estimate of the overall percentage of young people who have been victims of crime, a good deal of information is available from the 1992 British Crime Survey (BCS), the 1993 Youth Lifestyle Survey (YLS), and from a special data collection exercise on violent crime recorded by the police.
According to the 1992 BCS, 60 per cent. of 12 to 15 year olds had experienced a theft, non-family assault and/or harassment in the six to eight months prior to the survey. Most of these incidents were not judged to be crimes by the victim: 18 per cent. had experienced something they regarded as a crime. The full findings are
Victimisation rates by offence, average 1990–94 Rates per 100,000 population2 Violence against the person Indecent assault1 Robbery and theft from the person Rape Male Female Female Male Female Male Female Age of victim 0–9 94 62 6 25 94 8 2 10–15 704 373 59 66 327 331 54 16–24 1,234 704 58 11 130 305 116 25–39 634 463 21 3 37 168 93 40–59 273 153 5 1 10 109 66 60 and over 64 26 1 0 2 44 81 Total 477 271 18 7 63 144 67 Coverage of recorded offences (50%) (72%) (64%) (55%) 1 Including buggery offences 2 Represents the number of victimisations per 100,000 population in each respective age group