Statistics on persistent young offenders (PYOs) are only available for those offenders that are arrested and then found guilty. These statistics, split by court type as requested in the question, are only available from 1999 onwards. The figures for Bexley are only available from 2002.
The PYO figures are designed to measure the speed and efficiency of the youth justice system; through monitoring the pledge to halve the average time from arrest to sentence for dealing with PYOs in England and Wales from 142 days in 1996 to 71 days. They are not designed to measure overall trends in youth crime, and will give a misleading picture of the true trend if used for this purpose.
The table following on this response shows the number of PYOs dealt with in England and Wales, London and for the London borough of Bexley. The counts of this type of offender are split by court jurisdictions for England and Wales and the London area. The figures for Bexley are very small and therefore subject to year-on-year volatility.
On 10 December 2008, the Secretary of State for Justice announced in a written ministerial statement that the PYO pledge would be dropped with effect from the end of 2008. This is therefore the last year for which PYO statistics will be published and compiled.
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 England and Wales Magistrates courts 8,189 9,297 9,815 11,961 12,889 13,218 13,297 13,511 13,894 14,476 15,414 The Crown court 1,423 1,514 2,160 1,264 961 1,024 941 974 924 1,043 1,095 Total 9,868 11,079 12,014 13,233 13,854 14,244 14,244 14,492 14,827 15,528 16,512 London (Metropolitan police force area) Magistrates courts 541 622 856 948 1,176 1,200 1,129 1,199 1,208 1,325 1,593 The Crown court 182 192 228 148 121 124 121 125 121 161 175 Total 864 1,003 1,091 1,100 1,297 1,325 1,251 1,324 1,329 1,486 1,768 London borough of Bexley Magistrates courts — — — — — — — — — — — The Crown court — — — — — — — — — — — Total — — — — — 44 36 28 38 26 52 Notes: 1. The Police National Computer data can contain records where the type of court in which the case was heard was unknown. This missing information only impacts a very small minority of cases, and was more a feature of the data in the past than in the present. Thus, the sum of cases heard in magistrates courts and the Crown court in each year is less than all cases heard in England and Wales. 2. The counts of persistent young offenders for the London borough of Bexley are very small subsets of the overall London and England and Wales populations, and as such are subject to year-to-year volatility. 3. The counts for 2008 are based on provisional (incomplete) data and are therefore subject to being revised. Any revision should not result in a substantial increase in these counts.