By The Youth Justice Board (UK)
Key findings The Serious Incident Annual Report provides a comprehensive overview of 438 serious incidents notified to the Youth Justice Board (YJB) in 2023-24 and the 546 children involved, highlighting key themes and recommendations. Whilst serious incident reporting has been mandatory for youth justice services (YJSs) since April 2022, this is the first year of published findings. A summary of the key findings is below. Whilst there are limitations to this data (please see section 2.1 Data Limitations), this report underscores the importance of addressing exploitation, knife crime, and the vulnerabilities of children with special educational needs or who are neurodivergent. It also highlights the need for timely, effective interventions which address underlying causes, and support to prevent children from being involved in serious incidents. To learn more about the notification process itself, please see the Serious incidents notification: standard operating procedures for YJSs - GOV.UK Criminal exploitation • 41% of all children notified were said to be gang affiliated, criminally exploited, or involved with the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) process1; 42% of all boys and 29% of all girls. • 20% of all children notified had exploitation concerns identified relating to the charge, of these; 58% an NRM referral was due to be made and 42% had a previous NRM referral but were awaiting a decision. Offence types • 55% of all notifications were for Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH), 16% for Rape, 13% for Murder/Manslaughter, 9% Attempted Murder and 3% Terrorism offences. • 56% of incidents notified were knife/blade enabled. • 92% of Attempted Murder notifications indicated there was knife or blade involvement, 84% of Murder/Manslaughter, and 62% of Grievous Bodily Harm incidents. • Rape charges increased from 8-13% of overall notifications when compared to the previous year. Contact with services • 36% of all children charged were under the supervision of a youth justice service at the time of the incident. • 24% were not known to YJSs, nor were they engaged in support from any other local authority service at the time of the incident. • 49% of children notified had no previous cautions and convictions, increasing to 92% for children charged with terrorism offences. • 71% of children notified for murder were not supervised by a youth justice service at the time of the incident, but were known to other agencies, social care, education, health. • 63% had some kind of previous contact with a local authority or Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), of these 24% were engaged with both the youth justice service and one or more other services at the time of the incident. Safeguarding and vulnerabilities • Of the 63% who had some kind of previous contact with a local authority or CAMHS service; o 29% were identified as Children in Need or in Wales, Children with care and support needs o 19% were subject of a Child Protection Plan o 27% were in the care of the local authority as a looked after child, with 48% of these reported to have gang involvement and/or exploitation concerns. • 23% of children reported had identified Special Educational Needs, in Wales Additional Learning Needs/Neurodiversity. Of these; • 19% had an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) or in Wales Individual Development Plans • 48% were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) • 53% reported risks associated with exploitation. • 43% of children notified due to their death whilst under the supervision of the youth justice service were victims of murder and 19% died by suicide. Demographics and over-representation • 96% of the children notified were boys • 68% of the children notified were 16-17 years old; 99% of these were boys. • 48% of all children notified were from ethnic minority backgrounds and significantly overrepresented compared to the general 10-17 population (27%) • 17% of children reported were from Black backgrounds and significantly overrepresented compared to the general 10-17 population (6%) • 17% of children reported were from Mixed backgrounds and significantly overrepresented compared to the general 10-17 population (6%) Timeliness of investigations and decision making • Rape offences took the longest from offence to charge, averaging 380 days, followed by terrorism offences at 230 days. • 32% of all incidents took longer than 180 days from offence to charge. • 17% of children notified were reported as being on bail for another matter at the time of the incident.
London: YJB, 2025. 38p.
