The Howard League for Penal Reform has published research on the number of children arrested in the UK:
New research by the charity shows police made more than 209,000 arrests of boys and girls aged 17 and under during 2011. This number includes 2,117 arrests of children who were aged 10 or 11, meaning that on average six primary school children were arrested every day.
In total, more than one million child arrests have been made in England and Wales since 2008.
It’s good news that the number seems to be coming down, but it’s still a massive failure of the system that so many children are arrested each year.
Oliver Lewis 