7500 Children arrested in Wales last year.

Statistics reveal 7,500 children in Wales were arrested last year.
April 12th 2010

Alarming statistics released through the freedom of information act has identified a significant amount of children arrests in Wales last year in what has been referred to by many political parties as signs of "Broken Britain"

7,500 under 16s were arrested in 2009 by the four police forces operating across Wales for crimes such as arson, sexual assaults and violent crime. It is reported that one child aged 9 was detained for carrying a firearm or imitation with intent to cause fear of violence, but could not be taken into custody because he was below the age of criminal responsibility.

Figures released by the Welsh police forces saw a total of 7,521 children aged 15 and under arrested over all four areas. Wales' largest police force, South Wales Police, arrested 2,932 children last year, with 122 of those aged under 12.

A South Wales Police spokesperson said: "Tackling all youth crime is a priority for South Wales Police and the force places a strong emphasis on intervention and diverting young people from anti-social behavior and criminality.

"We work closely with young people and partners such as the Prince's Trust and our aim is to stop anti-social and criminal behavior through early intervention."

Other police forces also revealed their crime results where Gwent police recorded the lowest number of arrests with 1,140 children detained by police of which 22 children were aged 11 or under. North Wales Police recorded the nation's second highest number of arrests, with 2,075 children aged under-16 and 78 children under 12 being detained. Dyfed-Powys Police saw 1,334 arrests of children under 16, with 77 under the age of 12.

Secretary of NUT Cymru David Evans pictured below said: "Our view is that although these statistics are useful, in reality the children that are being arrested is relatively low. We don't know the number of arrests that led to prosecutions and the number of arrests involving repeat offenders, so we can assume it's a low number of actual offenders.

"But even if the proportion is 1% of all children in Wales, it's too high, but it does show that there is movement to keeping it to an absolute minimum.

"I don't think that it's getting any worse and it will take time for figures to come down, but we are going in the right direction and over the next few years I would hope to see a reduction."

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