Youth Justice Service

Please can I request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act, relating to the Youth Justice Service:

For each of the following financial years (separately): 2021/22, 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25

1) Number of under-18s referred to the Youth Justice Service after a caution or sentence for the following types of offending, broken down by year of age at referral and gender:

1. a) Violence against the person
2. b) Sexual offences
3. c) Offending or behaviour classed as violence against women and girls (if you need this to be defined, please use NPCC definition)
4. d) Offending or behaviour linked to misogyny
5. e) Total (i.e. people referred for more than one of these reasons would be counted only once

Please see the table below:

2) Number of under-18s referred to the Youth Justice Service for preventative or diversionary support (i.e. not after caution or sentence) after being linked to the following types of offending or behaviour, broken down by year of age at referral and gender:

1. a) Violence against the person
2. b) Sexual offences
3. c) Offending or behaviour classed as violence against women and girls (if you need this to be defined, please use NPCC definition)
4. d) Offending or behaviour linked to misogyny
5. e) Total (i.e. people referred for more than one of these reasons would be counted only once)

Please see the table below:

3.Please include in the figures any young people from other local authorities who were dealt with by your Youth Justice Service.

The figures provided in the tables above included all children the Devon YJS worked with (regardless of which Council is legally responsible for them).

4. If a young person was referred for the same offence category more than once in the same year, please only count them once.

The figures provided in the tables above are for a distinct count on the child’s service identification, so each Total line ensures each child was only counted once.  If a young person had more than one offence in the same year and was a different age at that offence the overall total would show the distinct number of children, but that figure may not match the data broken down by age and gender