Linked data
The MoJ has just (20 March 2025) published an exploratory analysis of repeat offending by children and young people in England and Wales. It focuses on one cohort of young people with repeated contact with the criminal courts, examining their characteristics, offending patterns, and needs.
This analysis is based on newly linked administrative data made available via the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Data First programme, funded by Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK). Previous statistics have been limited to either reporting reoffending, or to exploring the needs of children in the criminal justice system. Leveraging advances in data linking, these statistics, for the first time have explored their intersection, providing critical new insights into the needs of those young people who are most frequently convicted.
Data sources
To construct a complete court history for each young person, magistrates’ court data (2011-2023) and Crown Court data (2013-2023) were brought together. Additionally, for the first time, records from the Offender Assessment System (OASys) were also linked to enable analysis of a broad range of characteristics and needs, including to identify key differences between prolific and nonprolific young offenders.
Defining prolific young offenders
This analysis focuses on a cohort of children and young people who have been involved in repeat offending. For the purposes of this analysis, these are defined as individuals who:
were 18 years old in 2019 and had a conviction for an offence committed that year (the index conviction); and,
had been convicted in a criminal court at least three times for offences committed between the ages of 10 and 17 (youth convictions).
Risks and needs
- For offenders assessed at age 18, prolific young offenders had higher levels of need compared to nonprolific young offenders across all eight criminogenic areas: accommodation, employability, relationships, lifestyle, drug misuse, alcohol misuse, thinking & behaviour, and attitudes.
- Each area of criminogenic need is comprised of a set of questions. The questions which exhibited large differences in significant need include:
- school attendance (49% prevalence in prolific young offenders, compared to 20% of nonprolific young offenders);
- susceptibility to influence by criminal associates (48% prevalence in prolific young offenders, compared to 21% of nonprolific);
- a history of childhood behavioural problems (52% prevalence in prolific young offenders, compared to 24% of nonprolific young offenders)
- A larger proportion (27%) of prolific young offenders live in the most deprived 10% of neighbourhoods. This compares to 21% of nonprolific young offenders and 11% of all 18-year-olds across England.
Nature and frequency of offending
- Most prolific young offenders (70%) were first convicted for offences committed between ages 14 and 16; 22% were convicted for an offence committed before age 14.
- Whilst all young people in the cohort met the threshold of three youth convictions before turning 18 years old, 28% had exactly three, 43% had four to six, 18% had seven to nine, and 11% had ten or more youth convictions. This suggests that even among prolific young offenders, there is a subset that is particularly criminally active.
- Over a quarter (27%) of prolific young offenders received at least one immediate custodial sentence before the age of 18 years old.
- For prolific young offenders, theft offences accounted for 23% of youth convictions, falling to 12% of offences committed as adults. Conversely, convictions for drug and violence offences increased from 16% for youths to 25% for adults.
- The more youth convictions an offender had, the more likely they were to continue offending frequently as adults. 9% of prolific young offenders were convicted of 8 or more offences as young adults between the ages of 18-22.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
