Surge in young criminals serving life sentences as gangs seek to ‘overkill’ their rivals

The number of young criminals serving life sentences has increased by more than 50 per cent in under a decade amid rising youth violence.

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data show the number of criminals aged 25 or younger sentenced to life with a tariff of at least 15 years in jail rose from 917 to 1,394 between 2013 and 2020, an increase of 52 per cent.

That means that in just seven years, almost 500 more young men and women have been sentenced to at least a decade and a half in prison, according to the figures obtained under Freedom of Information laws by criminologists at Royal Holloway and Cambridge University. 

Experts attributed the increase to growing gang violence where attacks were now much more savage than previously, making it more likely to end in murder and garnering tougher sentences from the courts.

The murder rate increased by 35 per cent between 2015 and 2018, fuelled partly by the surge in knife crime, before plateauing in subsequent years at around 11 homicides per one million of the population, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Soaring number of knife attacks

It is underlined by the 65 per cent increase in the number of under-19s treated in hospital for stab wounds in the past five years, according to data analysed by the crime consultancy and think tank Crest Advisory.

The teenage murder rate in London is on course to be the worst since 2012 after the killings of at least 20 teenagers in just over six months. The previous high was 27 in 2017.

Simon Harding, professor of criminology at the University of the West of London and director of the national centre for gang research, said the level of violence in attacks was higher than before as if there was a desire for “overkill”.

“It feels as if the aim is for overkill rather than just kill. There is a sense that an individual has to be rubbed out completely, not just stopped,” said Prof Harding. “I see it more and more in the crimes that I review. There seems to be a level of savagery that at times surprises me.”

He said it was evident in a new tactic adopted by some gangs of using cars to mount pavements and knock down their target, before jumping out and stabbing them to death as they lay on the ground.

Jaden Moodie, 14, was a victim of the tactic in 2019 when he was knocked off his moped by a gang of five young men in a car before being stabbed to death with such force that bone was damaged and his lung and liver punctured.

Ayoub Majdouline, 19, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 21 years in prison for the attack in which he and four other gang members set out on a “killing” mission into a rival gang’s territory in Leyton, East London.

Bragging rights

Prof Harding said the motivation for such violence lay in the “bragging rights” that it brought, the dominance that they could display by doing it, and the need to “make your mark” because of the intense competition for turf and drugs between the gangs.

David Wilson, emeritus professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, said two high-profile murders by teenagers in 2012 (one who killed his mother with a claw hammer and another where two brothers beat a homeless person to death) had shifted courts to take a tougher stance.

“That creates the context in which there is a general toughening of the law and some of that toughening is also seen as being necessary for young people who commit violent crime,” he said.

Almost 7,000 people in prison are serving life sentences in England and Wales, which is more than any other nation in Europe and more than France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Scandinavia combined.

Since 2013, there has also been an increase in the number of young black people serving long life sentences, now accounting for 29 per cent of lifers sentenced to minimum tariffs of 15 years or more when aged 25 or younger, up from 24 per cent in 2013.

Serena Wright and Susie Hulley, of Royal Holloway and Cambridge University respectively, said the data exploded the “myth” that England and Wales were “soft” on sentencing.

“It is clear to us that these phenomena have come about as a direct consequence of changes in legislation, which represent the Government’s desire to symbolically communicate its enduring commitment to law and order,” they said.