Youth cautions
Published
There is a new version of this page. View the latest version.
1. Main facts and figures
- in 2016/17, police issued cautions to young people on 13,533 occasions, and the ethnicity of the young person who was cautioned was recorded for 12,132 of them (90%)
- White young people received cautions on 10,148 occasions, which is 84% of all instances where ethnicity was recorded
- police gave youth cautions on 1,310 occasions to Black young people, which is 11% of all instances where ethnicity was recorded
- from 2005/06 to 2016/17, the total number of cautions given fell by 89% (from 122,282 to 13,533) – the percentage of cautions that were given to White young people decreased (from 90% to 84%), while the percentage that were given to Black young people increased from 6% to 11%)
Things you need to know
Before 8 April 2013, police gave reprimands and final warnings to young people aged 10 to 17, but they were replaced with youth cautions and youth conditional cautions. In this data, reprimands, final warnings and youth conditional cautions are all treated as though they were youth cautions.
If a young person is cautioned for 2 or more offences at the same time, the police officer will record all offences in the Police National Computer (PNC). The data for the most serious offence is shown here.
The total figures for occasions include young people whose ethnicity is not recorded in the PNC. However, in every time period reported in this data, ethnicity has been recorded for at least 90% of cautions.
Ethnicity is identified and recorded by the police officer giving the caution, based on appearance, and is not self-defined by the young person. Ethnicity has been consistently recorded in 4 broad categories: White, Black, Asian and Other (including Chinese).
What the data measures
This data measures the number of occasions where a youth caution was given to young people aged 10 to 17 years.
The figures are taken from the Police National Computer (PNC). The PNC holds details of all convictions and cautions given for ‘recordable offences’. A recordable offence is an offence that the law says must be recorded on the PNC. It includes some offences where it is not possible for offenders to be sentenced to prison or other custody, and it excludes motoring offences.
Ethnicity is identified and recorded by the police officer giving the caution, based on appearance.
The ethnic categories used in this data
The analysis used the following 4 broad ethnic categories:
- Asian
- Black
- White
- Other (which includes Chinese and other ethnic groups)
2. Youth cautions by ethnicity over time
| Asian | Black | White | Other including Mixed | Unknown | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time | Asian % | Asian Value | Black % | Black Value | White % | White Value | Other inc Mixed % | Other inc Mixed Value | Unknown % | Unknown Value |
| 2005/06 | 3.6 | 4,216 | 5.9 | 6,820 | 89.7 | 104,147 | 0.8 | 927 | *N/A | 6,172 |
| 2006/07 | 3.7 | 4,578 | 6.1 | 7,569 | 89.1 | 109,818 | 1.0 | 1,284 | *N/A | 8,411 |
| 2007/08 | 3.8 | 4,314 | 6.3 | 7,081 | 88.9 | 100,552 | 1.0 | 1,154 | *N/A | 7,157 |
| 2008/09 | 4.3 | 3,775 | 6.6 | 5,867 | 88.0 | 78,124 | 1.2 | 1,040 | *N/A | 4,850 |
| 2009/10 | 4.2 | 2,812 | 6.7 | 4,484 | 87.8 | 58,689 | 1.3 | 839 | *N/A | 3,910 |
| 2010/11 | 4.1 | 1,977 | 7.1 | 3,429 | 87.6 | 42,484 | 1.2 | 593 | *N/A | 2,131 |
| 2011/12 | 4.0 | 1,649 | 7.2 | 2,940 | 88.0 | 36,061 | 0.8 | 315 | *N/A | 1,248 |
| 2012/13 | 3.8 | 1,157 | 7.2 | 2,179 | 88.2 | 26,626 | 0.8 | 233 | *N/A | 1,056 |
| 2013/14 | 3.8 | 998 | 7.4 | 1,930 | 88.0 | 22,872 | 0.7 | 190 | *N/A | 1,025 |
| 2014/15 | 4.2 | 866 | 8.8 | 1,809 | 86.3 | 17,719 | 0.7 | 137 | *N/A | 1,210 |
| 2015/16 | 4.2 | 653 | 9.5 | 1,470 | 85.7 | 13,304 | 0.6 | 92 | *N/A | 1,323 |
| 2016/17 | 4.8 | 581 | 10.8 | 1,310 | 83.6 | 10,148 | 0.8 | 93 | *N/A | 1,401 |
Download table data for ‘Youth cautions by ethnicity over time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘Youth cautions by ethnicity over time’ (CSV)
Summary of Youth cautions Youth cautions by ethnicity over time Summary
This data shows that:
- in 2016/17, police gave cautions to White young people on 10,148 occasions, which is 84% of all youth cautions where ethnicity was recorded
- in the same period, police gave cautions to Black young people on 1,310 occasions, which is 11% of all youth cautions where ethnicity was recorded
- from 2005/06 to 2016/17, the total number of youth cautions given fell by 89%, from 122,282 to 13,533
- in the same period, the percentage of youth cautions given to White young people decreased from 90% to 84%, and the percentage given to Black young people increased from 6% to 11%
- in the same period, the percentage of youth cautions given to young people from Asian and Other ethnicities stayed fairly constant
3. Methodology
The figures are taken from the Police National Computer (PNC). The PNC holds details of all convictions and cautions given for ‘recordable offences’. A recordable offence is an offence that the law says must be recorded on the PNC. It includes some offences where it is not possible for offenders to be sentenced to prison or other custody, and it excludes motoring offences.
The PNC may be subject to some error arising from data entry and processing. The data for January to March 2017 is provisional and may change. Figures may vary from those previously published, due to minor changes in classifications and other data revisions.
Administrative data sources are reported exactly as they’re recorded, with no statistical methods like weighting applied. As with all large administrative data sources, some inaccuracy may exist.
Rounding
Percentages are rounded to 1 decimal place.
Related publications
Youth Justice since 2008/09
Quality and methodology information
4. Data sources
Source
Youth Justice annual statistics: 2016 to 2017
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
National Statistics
Publisher
Ministry of Justice
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
Youth justice data is used by the government to develop, monitor and evaluate criminal justice policy for young people in custody. It reports on activity in the criminal justice system for England and Wales, giving information for the latest year and also longer-term trends.
5. Download the data
This file contains the following: ethnicity, year, and value