Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what work they have done to look at offending behaviours and the reasons behind the cycle of crime and reoffending rates.

We use data and evidence to understand why people offend and to design services to reduce reoffending.

We regularly review UK and international evidence to understand the drivers of offending and evaluate the interventions and services that are effective in leading people away from crime.

Evaluations of our rehabilitative initiatives such as offending behaviour programmes and education and employment services, show that they can reduce reoffending. Evaluations of our general offending behaviour programmes show that they can reduce reoffending by between 8 and 14 percentage points. Likewise, services to help get people back in to employment and prisoner learning have also shown a reduction of 6-9 percentage points on reoffending.

We also know that offending behaviour programmes work best when they are targeted according to a person’s risk of reoffending, the areas they need to address to stop offending and when the approach is adapted to their individual circumstances – for example where an offender has learning disabilities.