The last 15 years have seen a sharp decline in the number of young adults (18-24) going through the courts. That smaller number, however, are facing harsher outcomes.
Based on official statistics - published quarterly by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) - this report draws out trends for young adults in the criminal justice system for more serious offences (defined here as indictable or triable either way) and highlights disparities across gender and ethnicity.
The report finds that:
- While numbers have declined, those young adults who are prosecuted have been increasingly more likely to be remanded, less likely to get a community sentence, and more likely to get a prison sentence (and go to prison for longer).
- Young men are more likely to be remanded and sent to prison but young women are more likely to be remanded for offences that did not ultimately lead to a prison sentence.
- It appears that ethnic disparities have sharpened over time but it is hard to get the full picture because the quality of ethnicity data is decreasing.
As the report draws on aggregate data, which was collected by the MoJ for primarily administrative purposes, there is a limit to how much it can claim or explain. To address this, the report draws on official reviews (Corston, 2007 and Lammy, 2017) and recent academic studies to contextualise its findings and raises further questions based on observable general trends.
Three main questions arise in the report's conclusion:
- Why has the criminal justice system appeared to concentrate, with an increasingly smaller number of young adults receiving harsher sentences?
- Why are young women still more likely than young men to be remanded in custody for offences that did not result in custodial sentences?
- Why have ethnic disparities continued and what are the disparities at the intersection of gender and ethnicity?
We are grateful to the Transition to Adulthood Alliance, convened by the Barrow Cadbury Trust for supporting this work.
