Young people’s experiences of violence

A new report published by the Youth Endowment Fund today explores the ways in which violence – and fear of violence – is shaping children’s lives.

The report “Children, violence and vulnerability 2022” combines a survey of 2,025 children and young people with a review of national statistics. The Youth Endowment Fund was established in March 2019 by children’s charity Impetus, with a £200m endowment and ten year mandate from the Home Office. Its purpose is to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence; it does this predominantlyby finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice.

The context 

Data about young people’s experiences of violence is limited. The Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW), which surveys around 2,000 children, provides a picture of levels of violence – but not of the ways that fear of violence shapes children’s behaviour. The report aims to fill this gap by a survey of over 2.000 young people.

The report also contains a summary of the national available data on violence and vulnerabilities. The Youth Endowment Fund intends to report this research in the future to try to identify which initiatives are successful in reducing youth violence.

Definition of violence

When asking children about their experiences of violence, the researchers used the following definition:

“By violent crime, we mean the use of force or threat of force against another person or people, for example punching someone, threatening someone with a weapon, or mugging someone. This also includes sexual assault, which is when somebody intentionally touches someone in a sexual way without their consent.”

Included in this definition are:

• Sexual assault: 5% of teenagers reported being the victim of sexual assault in the last 12 months (this rises to 8% for girls).
• Being threatened by a weapon: 5% reported being threatened or assaulted with a weapon in the last 12 months (this rises to 6% for boys).
• Being assaulted, including on school premises: for example, being pushed to the floor and punched by another pupil.
• Being stabbed.

 Key Findings

The survey, which was undertaken on a nationally representative basis made the following key findings.

• 14% of teenage children had been a victim of violence in the last 12 months 
• 39% of teens had been a victim or witness of violence in the last 12 months
• 55% of teens said they’d seen real life acts of violence on social media in the last 12 months. 24% said they’d seen children carrying, promoting, or using weapons.
• 65% of teens said they’d changed their behaviour to keep themselves safe from violence in the last 12 months. 14% had been absent from school out of fear. A further 14% said it caused them to lose concentration, because of worry. 16% avoided going to a social event. And 2% even said that their fear had led to them carrying a weapon.
• 26% want to see changes to policing (such as more patrols) to address violence, alongside more youth clubs and activities (15%) and drug and alcohol services (10%).

The review of national statistics showed that:

• Violence was down in the years before the Covid-19 pandemic. 0-17 knife related hospital admissions fell 7% between 2018/19 and 2019/20.
• During the pandemic, violence fell; robberies decreased by 34%, homicides by 20% and 0-17 hospital knife related hospital admissions by 14% between 2019/20 and 2020/21.
• As restrictions eased, some forms of violence have returned to pre-pandemic rates while others haven’t. Robberies remain 27% below the rate in 2019/20 but homicides of 13-17-year-olds in London are higher in 2021 than in 2019.
• Black children are increasingly overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Black children make up 4% of 10–17-year-olds, 15% of arrests, 18% of children stopped and searched and 29% of children in custody – up from 17% in 2011/12.

As part of this research the Youth Endowment Fund also interviewed young people and youth offending team workers, to see how the data matches their experiences and will be publishing more details of this qualitative research in the coming months.

Interested readers can read the full report here.