Young Victims of Crime

Further information

Why young victims of crime?

Young victims of crime are under represented and hidden. Young Voice and Victim Support aim to provide them with a voice. Young Voice aims to provide them with a voice. If services do not routinely collect data on young people and victimisation including where it happens and when it happens, how can we protect them? Until we begin to better protect them they will continue to try to protect themselves in often-risky ways such as weapon carrying. This can lead to young people ending up on the wrong side of the criminal justice system.

By putting in place standardised data collection on young victims across the UK we will be contributing to crime prevention and reduction in a way that has not been tried before. This information will provide police forces with valuable data on which to protect young people. It could be used in designing out crime in neighbourhoods and will contribute to improving relations with young people and the authorities.

Young victims of crime are entitled to a voice too. If you are a young person or you have an opinion on our campaign tell us about it.

Facts on young victims of crime

Young people are actually more likely to be victimised than adults

35% of young people aged 10 - 15 have experienced at least one personal crime in the last 12 months

Being a victim at age 12 is a powerful indicator of offending at age 15

Too many young people take matters into their own hands, due to being invisible and feeling unprotected; they consider carrying weapons as a security measure. 48% of young people in one London borough said they feel it is acceptable to carry a weapon to defend yourself. 25% said 'I don't feel it's acceptable but I feel I must.'

The British Crime Survey on victimisation does not routinely include under 16's

The combined BCS data with recorded crime from the police forces (Crime in England and Wales) has to remove any data relating to those under 16 to compare both data sets

Conference March 2006

9th March 2006
Conference 'Safer Futures: working with young victims of crime'

Background to campaign

Further information on the research behind the campaign can be found in Young Voice Matters 2 - Young victims of crime: overlooked in crime reduction? by Lisa Brook