Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will publish his Department's recent Freedom of Information Act response showing the number of people murdered by reoffenders.
Serious Further Offences (SFOs) are rare. Less than 0.5% of offenders under statutory supervision are convicted of an SFO; for murder, the proportion will be lower. Nonetheless, every single SFO is taken extremely seriously, and in all cases a review is carried out to identify any necessary actions which need to be taken to improve the management of other cases. As a proportion of the offenders managed by the NPS and CRCs respectively, there is no evidence of a difference between the National Probation Service (NPS) and the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) when it comes to offenders committing murder.
SFO reviews are initiated where the NPS or a CRC notifies HM Prison and Probation Service that an offender under supervision has been charged with an SFO. The number of SFO notifications is not equivalent to the number of SFO convictions in any year. About half of all SFO notifications do not result in SFO convictions. In other cases, after initial notification charges will be dropped or an offender acquitted or an offender convicted of a lesser offence.
Table 1 below shows the number of SFO notifications – that is, cases of an offender under probation supervision charged with an SFO - received between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2019, by SFO offence, where the offender was supervised by (a) the National Probation Service (NPS) and (b) Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC).
Table 1.
| 2014* | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | ||||||
SFO Offence | NPS | CRC | NPS | CRC | NPS | CRC | NPS | CRC | NPS | CRC | NPS | CRC |
Arson with intent to endanger life | 14 | 1 | 11 | 4 | 16 | 0 | 18 | 2 | 16 | 2 | 19 | 1 |
Assault by penetration | 17 | 7 | 13 | 17 | 17 | 18 | 18 | 19 | 6 | 9 | 10 | 12 |
Attempt or conspiracy to commit murder | 31 | 15 | 18 | 36 | 22 | 38 | 34 | 51 | 36 | 43 | 31 | 51 |
Aggravated Burglary | 24 | 0 | 22 | 0 | 40 | 1 | 57 | 0 | 35 | 0 | 25 | 1 |
Causing death by dangerous/careless driving/aggravated vehicle taking | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 11 | 10 | 7 |
False imprisonment | 11 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 24 | 1 | 29 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 19 | 2 |
Firearms offences including possession with intent | 19 | 0 | 16 | 2 | 12 | 0 | 15 | 1 | 16 | 1 | 16 | 0 |
Kidnapping | 22 | 1 | 11 | 4 | 12 | 2 | 21 | 1 | 28 | 0 | 23 | 1 |
Manslaughter | 8 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 13 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 5 |
Murder | 56 | 15 | 28 | 41 | 26 | 60 | 49 | 65 | 54 | 78 | 57 | 90 |
Offences under the Explosive Substances Act | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
Other qualifying sexual offences | 26 | 0 | 34 | 2 | 24 | 2 | 33 | 5 | 19 | 2 | 29 | 1 |
Other serious violent offence | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Female genital mutilation | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Other specified offence causing death | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Rape | 129 | 43 | 112 | 105 | 118 | 127 | 111 | 131 | 70 | 60 | 60 | 41 |
Robbery with firearm | 8 | 0 | 11 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 12 | 1 | 10 | 0 |
Under 13 sexual offences including rape | 20 | 7 | 22 | 12 | 16 | 9 | 15 | 17 | 15 | 8 | 13 | 2 |
Total | 391 | 90 | 310 | 238 | 350 | 274 | 425 | 315 | 338 | 224 | 329 | 215 |
Notes for Table 1:
Similarly, the number of SFO reviews completed is not equivalent to the number of SFO convictions in any year.
The Honourable Member may be referring to the Freedom of Information Act response 200121016 on 11 February 2020. However, that response did not show the number of people murdered by offenders under supervision. Rather, it showed the number of SFO reviews completed in each calendar year for 2014 to 2019, where the offender had been charged with murder.
Table 2 shows the total number of SFO reviews completed in 2014 as a whole, the number of reviews completed for those who were charged with murder, and the number of subsequent convictions for murder. Tables 3 and 4 below show the number of offenders being supervised by the NPS and CRC respectively who were charged with murder, where a review was completed in the years 2015, 2016, 2017, and the offender subsequently convicted of murder. We have provided the number of SFO reviews in 2014 as a separate table (Table 2), as Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) created CRCs mid-year and prior to this, Probation Trusts managed the cases.
Table 2
Year | All Reviews (a) | Reviews involving a Charge of Murder (b) | Reviews in (b) that resulted in a Murder conviction (c) |
2014 | 404 | 71 | 49 |
Table 3
Year | All NPS Reviews (a) | NPS Reviews involving a Charge of Murder (b) | Reviews in (b) that resulted in a Murder conviction (c) |
2015 | 291 | 28 | 15 |
2016 | 281 | 24 | 20 |
2017 | 362 | 47 | 28 |
Table 4
Year | All CRC Reviews (a) | CRC Reviews involving a Charge of Murder (b) | Reviews in (b) that resulted in a Murder conviction (c) |
2015 | 202 | 42 | 24 |
2016 | 235 | 47 | 26 |
2017 | 273 | 65 | 39 |
Notes for Tables 2, 3,4
In October, the Ministry of Justice will publish annual reconviction data, including murder for 2018/19, with an accompanying narrative which also explains the correct interpretation of the figures. The current publication can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/843382/Serious_Further_Offences_-Bulletin.pdf
Tables 2, 3 and 4 provide the number of reviews completed in respect of offenders supervised by the NPS or CRCs who were charged with and subsequently convicted of murder between 1 January 2014 and 31 December 2017. We have not provided data specific to individual CRCs as the total figure in some cases amounts to five people or fewer. We consider that we would be in breach of our obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation and / or the Data Protection Act 2018 if we release information that would risk identification of the individuals concerned.