Splintered Lives - Barnardo's

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chapter
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Table Three: Cautions to 16 year old females by police authority, by year*
Police Authority 1988 1989 1990 1991 Totals
West Midlands 18 15 31 13 77
West Yorkshire 12 13 11 17 53
Greater Manchester 11 7 10 24 52
Metropolitan police 3 3 20 13 39
Cleveland 3 3 7 14 27
Hampshire 4 4 1 13 22
Nottinghamshire 10 5 1 2 18
Leicestershire 5 6 3 1 15
Humberside 2 2 3 4 11
Derbyshire 1 1 2 0 4
South Yorkshire 0 0 1 3 4
Devon and Cornwall 0 0 1 1 2
Essex 1 1 0 0 2
Avon and Somerset 1 0 0 0 1
South Wales 1 0 0 0 1
Staffordshire 0 0 1 0 1
Suffolk 0 0 1 0 1
* all calculated from figures provided by The Children's Society 1994
Another source of evidence on the current incidence of sexual exploitation are
organisations which provide support to young people. Safe in the City, a project
working with under 16s in Manchester, estimate that 70% of the young runaways they
support are involved in some kind of sexual exploitation.
There is a dearth of British research in this field. But the following provide us with
systematic data from limited sources.
A survey in 1991 by SAFE, South Birmingham Community Health NHS Trust HIV
prevention outreach programme, involved interviews with 22 young women care
leavers involved in prostitution. Over 50% had been involved before they left care, that
is before they were 16, and four had had experience of prostitution before being taken
into care. Seventeen had had no sex education whilst in care (Linehan 1994). In the
same year Susan Edwards (1994) completed her study of prostitution in
Wolverhampton. She notes an increase from 1986 to 1991 of 24% to 42% of women
arrested being under 21. She was also told that girls under 17 were being referred to the
juvenile local bureau at a rate of three per week, although only 13 appear in the
compiled figures.
NJ Wild has published two studies of sex rings investigated by the police in Leeds
(1986, 1989). Thirty one rings were identified in two years involving 47 male offenders