Crimes against children

You asked

I would be grateful for information about crimes against children in England and Wales over the most recent five years for which data are available, as follows, in each year:

Total number of crimes known to the police in which a child under 16 was a victim (to include cases, eg arson, where a child under 16 was part of a group of victims of a single crime). Within the above totals for each year, totals under the categories of a) homicide b) assault c) sexual offences d) child neglect e) other.

Total number of persons convicted of an offence in which a child under 16 was the victim, and totals under categories a to e above.

Any information as to the characteristics of the victims, particularly age, ethnicity, socio-economic class, household type and carer(s).

Any information as to the characteristics of the convicted offenders, particularly age, relationship to victim, relationship to each other, ethnicity, socio-economic class.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry on crimes against children.

We publish crime statistics for England and Wales from two main sources: The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and crimes recorded by the police.

We publish some police recorded data that is broken down by age.

Homicide Appendix Table 3, published alongside our Homicide in England and Wales article shows the number of police recorded offences recorded as Homicide, by age and sex of victim. The ages are presented in groups, and there is data for victims aged 1-4 and 5-15, for the year ending March 2007 to the year ending March 2017.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/homicideinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2017/relateddata

We also publish some police recorded data on sexual offences broken down by age. Appendix Table A4, published alongside our Crime in England and Wales quarterly bulletin, contains data on the number of police recorded sexual offences against those under the age of 16. The categories relating to children under the age of 16 are ‘Rape of a male or female child under 16 years’, ‘Rape of a male or female child under 13 years’, ‘Sexual assault on a male or female child under 13 years’, ‘Sexual activity involving a child under 13 years or 16 years’ and ‘Abuse of children through sexual exploitation’. The data for these categories is available back to the year ending March 2005.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables

We don’t publish any other crime types by age of victim from police recorded crime data. However, the CSEW includes a separate questionnaire where children aged 10-15 are asked about their experience of crime and, as such, we can produce some estimates of crimes against those aged 10-15.

We publish two table sets looking at the Nature of Crime against children aged 10-15; Nature of Crime: children aged 10 to 15 years theft, and Nature of Crime: children aged 10 to 15 violence, which contain more data on the nature of crimes against those age groups for the crime types of theft and violence. Each table set contains a data on the percentage of 10-15 year olds who reported they were victim of a theft or violent offence to the police, for the year ending March 2017 (table 10.5 and 4.5 respectively).

This data is available on our website back to the year ending March 2015: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/natureofcrimechildrenaged10to15theft

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/natureofcrimetableschildrenaged10to15violence

And back to the year ending March 2012 on our Archive Site:

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160106232211/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/search/index.html?newquery=*&newoffset=200&pageSize=50&nscl=Crime+and+Justice&nscl-orig=Crime+and+Justice&content-type=Reference+table&content-type=Dataset&sortBy=pubdate&sortDirection=DESCENDING&applyFilters=true

There is also some CSEW data on the demographics of victims of crime for those aged 10-15. This is published in our Annual Trend and Demographic tables also alongside our Crime in England and Wales quarterly bulletin. Tables D3 and D4 show the proportion of children aged 10-15, who have been a victim of crime, by crime type and various personal and household characteristics. This data is available back to the year ending March 2015 on our website, and back to the year ending March 2012 on our Archive Site.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesannualtrendanddemographictables/current

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160106232214/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/search/index.html?newquery=*&newoffset=250&pageSize=50&nscl=Crime+and+Justice&nscl-orig=Crime+and+Justice&content-type=Reference+table&content-type=Dataset&sortBy=pubdate&sortDirection=DESCENDING&applyFilters=true

We do not hold any data on child abuse experienced by children. Whilst we do publish statistics on abuse during childhood, these are based on questions asked of adults in the CSEW about their experiences of abuse during childhood. More information on these statistics can be found at the link here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/abuseduringchildhood/findingsfromtheyearendingmarch2016crimesurveyforenglandandwales

We do not hold any data on the perpetrators of crime. This data is produced by the Ministry of Justice, and it is possible they may be able to help you further. They can be reached by email at: statistics.enquiries@justice.gsi.gov.uk

If you would like any further information, you can simply email us at CrimeStatistics@ons.gov.uk and we will endeavour to help.