Level and type of serious youth violence

As noted in Chapter 2, levels of violence in England and Wales have been declining since the mid-1990s (Billingham and Irwin-Rogers 2022). Yet, while violence rates have fallen, serious youth violence (SYV) remains a growing concern in England and Wales. As already mentioned, the Youth Justice Board define SYV as ‘any drug, robbery or violence against the person offence that has a gravity score of five of more’. Levels of SYV have been rising in England and Wales, and figures show that both perpetrators and victims of these offences are getting younger, with self-reported violence peaking at age 15 (Home Office 2018).

In July 2019, the Youth Justice Board released data on all proven SYV offences for the 12 youth justice services that form the Serious Youth Violence Reference Group,1 of which Manchester is one.2 The data showed that the number of SYV offences in Manchester had risen by over 200 per cent between 2016/17 and 2018/19. Alongside this, the rate of SYV (per 10,000 10-to 17-year-olds in the general population) had risen dramatically in Manchester, with the city having the highest rate of SYV in 2018/19 within the Reference Group. Indeed, a fifth of all youth offences in Manchester in 2018/19 were SYV, with the most common being robbery, followed by violence and then drugs.

As outlined in Table 3.1, the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) assessment tool showed that almost exactly half (n= 99) of the 200 young people who were assessed between 11 January 2020 and 10 January 2021 had committed a SYV offence. The high proportion of SYV cases was also highlighted in the interviews with youth justice workers: