Surge in young criminals sentenced to life

According to the figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws by criminologists at Royal Holloway and Cambridge universities, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data shows the number of criminals aged 25 or younger sentenced to life with a tariff of at least 15 years in jail rose by 52 per cent between 2013 and 2020, from 917 to 1,394. Almost 500 more young men and women have been sentenced to at least a decade and a half in prison in just seven years.

 

Experts attributed the increase to growing gang violence, stating that attacks are far more savage than they previously were making it more likely to end in murder, resulting in tougher sentences from the courts. Between 2015 and 2018 the murder rate increased by 35 per cent, a rise partly fuelled by the surge in knife crime. In subsequent years it plateaued at around 11 homicides per one million of the population, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).  According to data analysed by the crime consultancy and think tank Crest Advisory, the number of under-19s treated in hospital for stab wounds in the past five years has increased by 65 per cent. After the killings of at least 20 young people in just over six months, the teenage murder rate in London is on course to be the worst since 2012, with the previous high being in 2017 with 27 teenage deaths.

 

Professor of Criminology at the University of West London and director of The National Centre for Gang Research, Simon Harding, said the level of violence in attacks was higher than before as if there was a desire for "overkill". "It feels as if the aim is for overkill rather than just kill. There is a sense that an individual has to be rubbed out completely, not just stopped," said Prof Harding. "I see it more and more in the crimes that I review. There seems to be a level of savagery that at times surprises me." He continued to state that this was evident in a new tactic adopted by some gangs - using cars to mount pavements and knock down their target, before jumping out and stabbing them to death as they lay on the ground.  14-year-old Jaden Moodie was a victim of this tactic in 2019 when he was knocked off his moped by a gang of five young men in a car before being stabbed to death with such force that bone was damaged and his lung and liver punctured. His attacker, 19-year-old Ayoub Majdouline, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 21 years in prison for the attack. He and four other gang members had set out on a "killing" mission into a rival gang's territory in Leyton, east London.

 

Prof Harding said that the motivation for such violence lay in the need to "make your mark" because of the intense competition for turf and drugs between the gangs, the "bragging rights" that it brought, and the dominance that they could display by doing it. Emeritus professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, David Wilson said two high-profile murders by teenagers in 2012 – one who killed his mother with a claw hammer and another where two brothers beat a tramp to death – had shifted courts to take a tougher stance. "That creates the context in which there is a general toughening of the law and some of that toughening is also seen as being necessary for young people who commit violent crime," he said.

 

The Johnson Partnership

Nottingham Solicitors