Number of child arrests has fallen

Arrests of children by Derbyshire police have fallen by 66 per cent in five years, figures have revealed.
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Figures obtained by the Howard League for Penal Reform show that the number of arrests in Derbyshire dropped from 5,608 in 2008 to 1,930 in 2013.

It follows a successful Howard League campaign aimed at keeping as many children as possible out of the criminal justice system.

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Police services across the country have reviewed their arrest procedures and policies as a result of the charity’s engagement with them.

However, despite this positive trend, child arrests remain all too common nationwide – a child was arrested every four minutes in England and Wales in 2013.

Last year, police in England and Wales made 129,274 arrests of children aged 17 and under. These included 1,107 arrests of children who were aged 10 or 11, meaning that on average three primary school-age children were arrested every day.

In 2013 the total number of child arrests was as high as 318,053 – equivalent to an arrest every 99 seconds.

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