Legal News
Police Forces Reveal Increase in Drug Arrests in Under-16s (10 January 2012)
Date: 10/01/2012
Recent statistics have revealed that police have arrested in excess of 12,000 under-16s for possessing or supplying drugs in the past three years. The figures have revealed that youngsters as young as 11 are experimenting with drugs such as cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy and heroin. The figures were obtained with the aid of a Freedom of Information Act request to police forces across England and Wales. Forty out of 43 police forces in England and Wales provided information because of the request, revealing 12,589 drug-related arrests in under-16s in the last three years alone. These arrests included six ten-year-olds, all of whom fell into trouble for possessing drugs, and 53 11-year-olds, all of whom were taken into police custody either for possessing drugs or for possessing drugs with an intent to sell.
The Metropolitan Police, the UK’s largest police force, made 3,592 drug-related arrests in under-16s, including 14 arrests in children aged 11 years or under. In Plymouth, two 11-year-olds were arrested for intending to supply amphetamines and cannabis. In Essex, officers arrested an 11-year-old who was found to be in possession of what was suspected to be cannabis. The child told officers that he planned to sell it. No children under the age of ten were arrested for drug-related offences because children of this age are too young for police to charge them with criminal offences. Children aged between ten and 14 can be convicted if police can prove that they were aware that their actions were wrong.
Duncan Lewis’ criminal law solicitors can represent children charged with drug-related offences.