Suspended Sentences
(asked on 10th December 2015) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many suspended sentences were given for people with (a) one, (b) between one and 10 and (c) more than 10 previous convictions in each of the last five years.
Repeat offenders can expect to go straight to prison if they commit a serious offence. Serious offenders are now more likely to go to prison and for longer. The courts have discretion to suspend a custodial sentence for any offence where the sentence is for two years or less. This decision rests with the independent judiciary. The judiciary consider previous convictions as an aggravating factor when sentencing. The court may impose community requirements on the offender, and if the offender is found to breach any requirement or commits a further offence whilst the order is in force they will be sent to prison.
Offenders serving suspended custodial sentences have a lower re-offending rate than offenders serving immediate, short custodial sentences.
The information requested is contained in the table below.
Offenders1 sentenced to suspended sentence for indictable2 and summary offences3 by the number of previous convictions4, England and Wales, 12 months ending June 2011 - 12 months ending June 2015 | |||||
12 months ending June | Total number of offenders sentenced to suspended sentence |
| Number of previous convictions | ||
one | between one and ten | more than ten |
| ||
2011 | 42,360 | 4,725 | 16,565 | 11,995 | |
2012 | 40,894 | 4,305 | 15,601 | 12,169 | |
2013 | 41,256 | 4,308 | 15,311 | 13,013 | |
2014 | 46,265 | 4,580 | 16,806 | 15,340 | |
2015 | 50,058 | 5,172 | 18,019 | 16,509 |
|
Source: Ministry of Justice Police National Computer (PNC) extract | |||||
1. Figures are based on counting the number of occasions an offender was sentenced to suspended sentences for an offence in England and Wales. An offender can appear more than once in the total if the offender was sentenced on multiple occasions in the year. | |||||
2. Indictable offences including triable either-way offences. | |||||
3. Only includes recordable summary offences recorded on the PNC. The recordable offences are defined as offences that can attract a custodial sentence plus some additional offences defined in legislation. A range of less serious summary offences, such as TV licence evasion and many motoring offences are not recorded on the PNC. | |||||
4. Figures are based on counting the number of occasions on which offenders have previously received a conviction for any offence recorded on the Police National Computer, including some offences committed outside of England and Wales. Where there were multiple offences on the same occasion, only the primary offence as recorded on the Police National Computer would be counted. | |||||
5. All data have been taken from the MoJ extract of the Police National Computer. This includes details of all convictions, cautions, reprimands or warnings given for recordable offences (see www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/1139/schedule/made for definition). It is therefore possible that some offenders presented in the table above have previously also received convictions for offences not recorded on the PNC. | |||||