More than half of sex offences in 2022 involved victims aged under 18
In relation to all sex offences, across all ages, 83% of the cases reported in 2022 involved female victims.
More than half of reported sex offences in 2022 involved victims aged under 18, new figures show.
In relation to sex offences that gardaí have detected — where a suspected offender has been identified — a fifth were carried out by people also aged under 18.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that males were both the offender and the victim in over a fifth of detected sexual offences, while three out of four involved a male offender and a female victim.
The CSO has published information on the victims of crime and the suspected offenders and their relationships.
The statistics, as usual, are published “Under Reservation”, meaning the CSO continue to have concerns over the quality of the figures recorded by An Garda Síochána in its Pulse system.
In relation to reported crimes, victims under the age of 18 accounted for:
- 11% of murder and manslaughter victims in 2022 (five out of 47);
- 14% of dangerous driving fatalities (three out of 21);
- 51% of sexual offences victims (919 out of 3,118);
- 14% of assault victims (3,143 out of 23,255).
The figures found that within the assault category, 7% of attempted murders/threats to murder involved victims under the age of 18 (116).
When CSO analysts examined reported offences in 2021 that were detected by gardaí, it found that of the 272 victims of sexual offences aged under 18, 56 of the suspected offenders were also aged under 18 (21%).
In relation to detected assaults of people under 18, 488 of the 901 cases were carried out by a suspected teenager (55%).
This included six cases of attempted murder or threats to murder (23% of cases where the victim was under 18).
In relation to all sex offences, across all ages, 83% of the cases reported in 2022 involved female victims, which the CSO said continued a pattern of recent years.
Of the reported sex crimes in 2021 that were detected by gardaí (470), 99% of those were carried out by a male (463).
The CSO also found that 22% of detected sexual offences in 2021 involved both a male victim and a male perpetrator.
Males accounted for seven out of ten victims of homicides in 2022 and nearly six out of ten victims of assaults.
The number of murders and manslaughter cases (a subsection of homicides) increased in recent years, from 38 in 2019 to 47 in 2022.
The percentage of victims that were female rose from 18% in 2019 to 25% in 2022.
In relation to murders and manslaughter cases in 2021 that were detected, 12 of the 13 cases involving a male victim were suspected to have been carried out by a male, while all eight cases involving a female victim were carried out by a male.
Reported cases of attempted murder/threats of murder have increased for both men and women between 2019 and 2022.
Of crimes in this category that were detected, men were responsible for 279 of the 289 cases where the victim was a male and 240 of the 274 cases where the victim was a female.
