rviewees had seen an increase in safeguarding demand driven by extra-familial harms. …you could link that to class and to disconnection from a community, social media, increased poverty, all of which are clear lines to exploitation. And we’ve seen it play out with children with complex needs and with autism whose vulnerabilities make them much more vulnerable to exploitation. (DCS, Unitary, North West Region) Knife crime was reported to have escalated, including in areas where this had been at a reasonably low level. 4,664 12,156 4,746 9,005 21,703 0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 2015–16 2017–18 2019–20 2021–22 2023–24 Phase 5 Phase 6 Phase 7 Phase 8 Phase 9 21 …the general view of our police colleagues would be that there’s still the same number of young people carrying knives, but there seems to be more willingness to use them. And in the world of criminal exploitation, there is a growth in the number of these young people being both victims and perpetrators. (DCS, Unitary, East Midlands Region) This trend is reflected in other research. In 2022–23, the number of proven violent offences by 10–17-year-olds had halved compared with ten years previously (2012–13). However, there has been an increase in arrests of 10–17-year-olds for violent offences in the last two years (Youth Endowment Fund, 2024). There were also reports from more than one local authority of young people being involved in joint enterprise charges as secondary parties alongside adults in the criminal courts. As a single assessment factor in children’s social care, child criminal exploitation increased between 2021–22 and 2023–24, whilst child sexual exploitation as an assessment factor decreased over the same period, which may indicate improved identification of the primary issue (Figure 4). Figure