Childhood in care raises risk of entering English youth justice system eightfold

Children with a criminal record who had been in care were more than twice as likely to be given a custodial sentence as those who had not been. Photograph: Paul Doyle/Alamy

The largest ever study of care experience and the youth justice system in England has revealed that children who have lived in care are eight times more likely to have received a youth justice caution or conviction than those who have not.

Using data collated by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Department for Education, the study monitored the experiences of almost 2.3 million children born in England between 1996 and 1999. Their data was recorded between the ages of 10 – the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England – and 17.