Police arrested 4,135 youths in 2007. This is a decrease of 145 persons compared to the 4,280 youths arrested in the previous year. They accounted for 21% of the total persons arrested. This is a slight decrease from the 22% registered in 2006, but this continues to remain higher than the proportion of youth population in Singapore at 16%.

Similar to past trends, the three most common offences for which youths were arrested remained shop theft (1,294 persons), other theft (520 persons) and rioting (461 persons).

Despite the drop in youth arrests, the Police noted a rise in incendiary and explosion cases involving the use of sparklers committed by youths for the second year running. There were 43 such cases reported in 2007, compared to 32 cases in 2006⁶. 57 offenders were arrested for such cases and of these, more than 8 in 10 were youths.

6 There were 11 cases in 2005.