§ Mr. LivseyTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offences were committed by
Table 1: Crime against adults and domestic property committed by school aged children (under 16) Proportions (%) Contact crime against people aged 16 or over Theft Vandalism All BCS offences Proportion of BCS incidents in which victim could say anything about offender 99 24 36 43 Proportion of the above where victim said offender was of school age (under 16)1 10 21 55 21 1If more than one offender, at least one was of school age. Notes:
Contact crime comprises: wounding, common assault, robbery and snatch theft.
Theft comprises: theft from the person, burglary, other household theft, thefts of and from vehicles—all including attempted thefts. Vandalism includes damage to vehicles and household property.
Source:
1996 British Crime Survey. Weighted data.
Table 2: Number and proportion of persons cautioned or convicted at all courts by age group and type of offence, 1996 England and Wales 000 Aged under 16 All ages Type of offence Number Percentage [=-100%] Indictable 68.1 14 489.9 Summary non-motoring 25.1 4 581.3 Summary motoring 1.1 0.2 640.6 Total 94.2 6 1,711.8 Source:
Cautions and Court Proceedings databases
§ Mr. ClappisonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if references to imprisonment in section 9 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 include(a) detention in a young offender institution and (b) detention and training. [40188]
358Wchildren under the age of 16 years in England and Wales (a) in total and (b) as a percentage of the total number of crimes committed. [40124]
§ Mr. MichaelInformation reported by the police on notifiable offences does not include details on the offenders themselves. However, some information on the number and proportion of offences committed by children under 16 is available from the British Crime Survey (BCS) and the Cautions and Court Proceedings databases.
The BCS information is given in table 1. The survey measures the extent of crime against adults and private households and gives victims' assessments of the age of offenders. For contact crimes—mugging and other violence—this will be fairly accurate. For other types of crime, the victim often cannot say anything at all about the culprit so the BCS findings will not be an accurate representation of the proportion of all domestic crime that is committed by children under the age of 16.
The information from the Cautions and Court Proceedings databases on cautions and convictions is given in table 2.
§ Mr. MichaelIn answer to(a), for the purposes of section 9 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, references to imprisonment do include detention in a young offender institution. By virtue of clause 97 of the Crime and Disorder Bill, currently before Parliament, which inserts a new section 9A in the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997, the crediting of remand time measures in section 9 of that Act will apply to sentences of detention in a young offender institution.
In answer to (b), section 9 of the 1997 Act will not apply to sentences of detention under the new detention and training order. Instead, clause 70(6) of the Crime and Disorder Bill states that, in determining the term of a detention and training order for an offence, the court shall take account of any period for which the offender has been remanded in custody in connection with the offence, or any other offence the charge for which was founded on the same facts or evidence. The purpose of these different remand time arrangements in respect of the detention and training order is to ensure that a period of custody under the new order is sufficient to allow constructive 359W engagement with the young offender rather than the application of the section 9 direction, which might result in impractical very short periods in custody.
§ Mr. ClappisonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many young persons aged over 18 years and under 21 years were held in adult prison accommodation at the most recent available date. [40189]
§ Ms QuinThe latest available provisional information is for 31 March 1998. On that date, 1,150 males aged 18–20 years were held in adult prisons. All are normally accommodated separately from adult prisoners.
There are no separate young offender institutions for young women but they are held in designated accommodation operating under Young Offender Institution rules within adult establishments. On 31 March, there were 358 females aged 18–20 years in prisons in England and Wales.