Sexual Offences: Custodial Treatment

(asked on 13th November 2023) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that serious sexual offenders serve the whole of their custodial sentence.


Answered by
Gareth Bacon Portrait
Gareth Bacon
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 21st November 2023

The Sentencing Bill, introduced on 14 November, will ensure that rapists and serious sexual offenders serve their full custodial term in prison. This expands on the current situation, whereby these offenders, when sentenced to four years’ imprisonment or more, serve two thirds of their sentence in custody, following changes made by this Government.

This is in direct contrast to the last Labour Government who, in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, legislated so all prisoners serving a standard determinate sentence – including rapists and violent criminals – were automatically released from prison at the halfway point of the sentence.

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