Reoffenders
(asked on 1st June 2022) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of prisoners who are released from prison reoffend, broken down by (a) offence and (b) ethnicity, including the proportion of offenders of each ethnicity.
This Government is tackling the causes of reoffending to make our streets safer. We are investing in probation services and new initiatives to reduce reoffending and beat crime.
The Prisons Strategy White Paper, published in December 2021, sets out our ambitious plans to reduce reoffending. We will spend £200 million a year by 2024/25 to improve prison leavers’ access to accommodation, employment support and substance misuse treatment, and on further measures for early intervention to tackle youth offending. This builds on £70 million of investment in 2021 to tackle drivers of reoffending.
Our measures are working. Overall proven reoffending has decreased from 30.9% in 2009/10 to 25.6% in 2019/20. The reoffending rates for index offences of robbery, possession of weapons, criminal damage and arson, and sexual and drug offences have all fallen between 2009/10 and 2019/20.
The proportion of individuals (adults and juveniles) released from custody who subsequently went on to reoffend over a one-year follow-up period are presented in the table below. The figures are broken down by index offence and ethnicity.
Table 1: Overall proven reoffending data for offenders released from custody, by index offence and ethnicity, April 2019 to March 2020 annual offender cohort
Index offence | Proportion of offenders who reoffend (%) |
Violence against the person | 36.5% |
White | 38.4% |
Black | 29.2% |
Asian | 29.6% |
Other | 20.6% |
Not recorded | 24.0% |
Sexual | 10.9% |
White | 10.7% |
Black | 18.0% |
Asian | 9.0% |
Other | 14.7% |
Not recorded | 4.9% |
Robbery | 26.1% |
White | 26.3% |
Black | 26.1% |
Asian | 25.9% |
Other | * |
Not recorded | 20.9% |
Theft | 63.4% |
White | 63.8% |
Black | 64.5% |
Asian | 55.2% |
Other | 45.7% |
Not recorded | 56.3% |
Criminal damage and arson | 24.5% |
White | 24.4% |
Black | * |
Asian | * |
Other | * |
Not recorded | * |
Drug | 21.0% |
White | 21.0% |
Black | 22.8% |
Asian | 19.9% |
Other | 10.6% |
Not recorded | 13.2% |
Possession of weapons | 42.2% |
White | 43.5% |
Black | 39.9% |
Asian | 38.4% |
Other | 39.6% |
Not recorded | 32.0% |
Public order | 56.1% |
White | 57.3% |
Black | 51.7% |
Asian | 49.3% |
Other | * |
Not recorded | 47.1% |
Miscellaneous crimes against society | 27.9% |
White | 30.9% |
Black | 26.2% |
Asian | 18.4% |
Other | 6.8% |
Not recorded | 15.0% |
Fraud | 31.0% |
White | 35.5% |
Black | 25.7% |
Asian | 15.3% |
Other | * |
Not recorded | 7.2% |
Summary non-motoring | 56.9% |
White | 58.3% |
Black | 51.9% |
Asian | 46.7% |
Other | * |
Not recorded | 44.7% |
Summary motoring | 36.0% |
White | 37.9% |
Black | 30.1% |
Asian | 29.4% |
Other | * |
Not recorded | 20.0% |
Other | * |
White | * |
Black | * |
Asian | * |
Other | * |
Not recorded | * |
Total | 42.2% |
White | 44.6% |
Black | 36.3% |
Asian | 30.7% |
Other | 23.1% |
Not recorded | 28.3% |
Notes:
- Annual figures are produced by aggregating the four preceding 3-monthly cohorts. Please note that this may result in a single offender being included in the annual cohort more than once.
- Proven reoffences are measured over a one-year follow-up period and a further six-month waiting period to allow for offences to be proven in court. It is worth noting that the reoffending follow-up and waiting periods for the April 2019 to March 2020 annual offender cohort overlaps, to varying degrees, with the first, second and third national lockdowns due as a result of the COVID19 pandemic. Due to this, figures relating to this cohort period should be interpreted with caution.
- Index offence refers to the proven offence that led to an offender being included in the cohort.
- Ethnicity categories presented are based on the reporting police officers' perception of the offender's ethnicity which is entered onto the Police National Computer and not self-reported.
- Where offender counts are less than or equal to 5, data have been suppressed to avoid deductive disclosure. In addition, proven reoffending proportions based on less than 30 offenders are also removed as they make data unreliable for interpretation. In both instances, counts and/or proportions are marked as *.
- Due to how custodial sentences are recorded, offenders with prison sentence lengths of one day are not included.