Youth crime and youth justice 2015–2020

This article considers current issues in crime and justice in the UK and how these may bear upon young people over the next five years. It looks first at the ‘crime drop’ and observes that while conventional crime is falling, cyber crime is growing exponentially and that this may impact disproportionately upon the young. It examines the data on ethnicity, crime and victimisation and concludes that young Black men face particular dangers, particularly if they find themselves caught up in the penal system. It asks whether sexual offending is increasing, as the available data suggests, or whether it is just more widely reported and investigated and it raises questions about how it is to be policed in the future. It asks whether gang crime is growing or changing and, finally, it speculates about how the major parties may deal with ‘law and order’ in the run-up to the May 2015 election.