M
Member
Speaking in the House of Lords on 16 September 2025
Debate
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools BillContribution
The statistics about special educational needs children who fall into the criminal justice system are shocking, with 58,889 children being arrested in the last year for which there were statistics. In the same year, 103,135 children had confrontations with the police in which they might have been accused of a crime. Of those children cautioned or sentenced, 80% have special educational needs and neurodivergence. It is found when reports are written about them for the courts that that 80% have a cocktail of different problems, which will include school exclusion, custody at an earlier age, longer sentences, reoffending and that their crimes often involve violence.
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