Serious incident annual report
At a time when criminal justice is probably more politically sensitive than it has ever been (as the recent Sentencing Council row confirmed), I think the Youth Justice Board (YJB) should be applauded for publishing its first ever Serious Incidents Report on Wednesday (30 April 2025).
Youth Justice Services are required to notify the the YJB of a serious incident within 24 hours if a child aged between 10-17 years is charged with committing one of the following offences:
- attempted murder
- murder/manslaughter
- rape
- grievous bodily harm or wounding with or without intent – section 18/20
- a terrorism related offence
- Or, if a child dies while on the YJS caseload, or up to 20 calendar days following the end of YJS supervision.
The YJB require a notification for children 10-17 years old, however notifications are also required for 18-year-olds if the child was under 18 at the time of the incident or had been
known to the youth justice service at the time of their death.
What do we know about serious incidents?
Criminal exploitation
- 41% of all children notified were said to be gang affiliated, criminally exploited, or involved with the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) process; 42% of all boys and 29% of all girls.
- 20% of all children notified had exploitation concerns identified relating to the charge, of these; 58% an NRM referral was due to be made and 42% had a previous NRM referral but were awaiting a decision.
Offence types
- 55% of all notifications were for Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH), 16% for Rape, 13% for Murder/Manslaughter, 9% Attempted Murder and 3% Terrorism offences.
- 56% of incidents notified were knife/blade enabled.
- 92% of Attempted Murder notifications indicated there was knife or blade involvement, 84% of Murder/Manslaughter, and 62% of Grievous Bodily Harm incidents.
- Rape charges increased from 8-13% of overall notifications when compared to the previous year.
Contact with services
- 36% of all children charged were under the supervision of a youth justice service at the time of the incident.
- 24% were not known to YJSs, nor were they engaged in support from any other local authority service at the time of the incident.
- 49% of children notified had no previous cautions and convictions, increasing to 92% for children charged with terrorism offences.
- 71% of children notified for murder were not supervised by a youth justice service at the time of the incident, but were known to other agencies, social care, education, health.
- 63% had some kind of previous contact with a local authority or Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), of these 24% were engaged with both the youth justice service and one or more other services at the time of the incident.
Safeguarding and vulnerabilities
Of the 63% who had some kind of previous contact with a local authority or CAMHS service:
29% were identified as Children in Need or in Wales, Children with care and support needs
19% were subject of a Child Protection Plan
27% were in the care of the local authority as a looked after child, with 48% of these reported to have gang involvement and/or exploitation concerns.
23% of children reported had identified Special Educational Needs, in Wales Additional Learning Needs/Neurodiversity.
43% of children notified due to their death whilst under the supervision of the youth justice service were victims of murder and 19% died by suicide.
Demographics and over-representation
- 96% of the children notified were boys
- 68% of the children notified were 16-17 years old; 99% of these were boys.
- 48% of all children notified were from ethnic minority backgrounds and significantly overrepresented compared to the general 10-17 population (27%)
- 17% of children reported were from Black backgrounds and significantly overrepresented compared to the general 10-17 population (6%)
- 17% of children reported were from Mixed backgrounds and significantly overrepresented compared to the general 10-17 population (6%)
Conclusions
The YJB emphasises that the information in this report should not be interpreted as a measure of serious violence as the dataset may be incomplete. Nevertheless, it is keen to emphasise the complex backgrounds of some of the children involved along with the impact on victims, who are often children themselves.
This year’s report highlights that children involved in serious incidents are often victims of the challenging circumstances in which they live. While this acknowledgment does not diminish the significant impact that these children can have on others, the YJB says it underscores the urgent need to address their vulnerabilities and exploitation, and to ensure effective early intervention to safeguard them from harm.
As you will have read above, the report also draws attention to the over-representation of Black and ethnic minority children in serious incidents, with the YJB highlighting the importance of targeted, equitable support.
Thanks to Ivan Lapyrin for kind permission to use the header image in this post which was previously published on Unsplash.
