Youth crime target

Youth offending teams across Greater Manchester are working with more than 1,000 well-known young criminals to help them get back on the straight and narrow.

There are 1,158 child tearaways currently known to the teams and Greater Manchester Police for having committed three or more crimes, up from 817 in 1997.

And the number of crimes committed by persistent young offenders has risen from 1,431 to 2,202 in the same period, according to the Ministry of Justice figures.

A persistent young offender (PYO) is anyone aged 10 to 17 who has been found guilty by any court in the UK on three or more separate occasions for one or more recordable offences, and within three years of the last sentencing.

GMP Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney said: “Our strategy on prolific offenders allows each of our divisions to identify prolific offenders according to the crimes that concern their communities the most. It is difficult to say exactly how much crime prolific offenders are responsible for, but it is a significant proportion.”

The Tories, who uncovered the figures said Labour had failed to tackle youth crime but instead presided over a decade of yobbery.

But Justice minister David Hanson said education and training for young offenders was helping cut re-offending. He said: “We want to help young people get away from crime. But we are clear that we will use tough enforcement when any young person oversteps the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and we will ensure that the most serious crimes are investigated.”

Nationally, the number of PYOs increased by 60% from 9,868 in 1997 to 15,819 in 2008. In addition, crimes committed by PYOs have risen by 80% from 16,010 to 28,834.