Prison Sentences

(asked on 26th June 2014) - View Source
Questioner
Philip Davies Portrait
Philip Davies
(Conservative - Shipley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average length of sentence was for (a) the total prison population and (b) foreign national prisoners, by type of offence, in 2012.

Answered by
Jeremy Wright Portrait
Jeremy Wright
This question was answered on 3rd July 2014

Sentencing in individual cases is entirely a matter for our independent courts, taking account of all the circumstances of each case. The sentencing legislation and sentencing guidelines apply equally to all offenders.

Crime continues to fall, but since 2010 those who commit a serious offence are more likely to go to prison and for longer. In 2013, the average custodial sentence length was 15.5 months across all indictable offences, which is the highest in more than a decade.

The average length of sentence for (a) the total prison population and (b) foreign national prisoners, by type of offence, in 2012 is shown in the table.

Average sentence length in months for foreign national prisoners and all prisoners by offence group, as on 30th June 2012, England and Wales
Offence Group Foreign NationalsAll prisoners
Violence against the person 66.352.3
Sexual offences 88.486.5
Burglary 27.137.5
Robbery 58.861.5
Fraud and forgery 28.237.9
Theft and handling 15.520.2
Motoring 10.216.1
Drug offences 73.166.9
Other offences 38.636.4
Offence not recorded 48.951.5
All offences 56.353.2
Notes:
These figures include determinate sentenced prisoners only, and represent a point-in-time average of sentence lengths on the 30th June 2012.
The 'all prisoners' figures are inclusive of foreign national prisoners.
Data Sources and Quality
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
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