Plea Bargaining

(asked on 30th November 2023) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many early guilty pleas were made in each of the last five years.


Answered by
Mike Freer Portrait
Mike Freer
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 5th December 2023

Early guilty pleas are defined as guilty pleas entered prior to trial. This data is published on a quarterly basis on the Criminal Justice System Delivery Data Dashboard and can be assessed here: Charge to case completion at court - CJS Dashboard (justice.gov.uk).

See below for the annual data for early guilty pleas from the last 5 years:

  • 26,611 early guilty pleas made in 2019.
  • 23,179 early guilty pleas made in 2020.
  • 25,505 early guilty pleas made in 2021.
  • 22,601 early guilty pleas made in 2022.
  • 12,639 early guilty pleas made in January – June 2023.
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