PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Custodial Treatment: Men (17 July 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many adult men with no previous convictions were taken into immediate custody from (a) Crown and (b) magistrates courts for sentences of (i) below six months and (ii) six months and over in each police force area in England and Wales in 2022-23; and what the offence classification was in each of those cases.

Asked by:
Ben Goldsborough (Labour)

Information on the numbers of adult men with no previous convictions who were taken into immediate custody from the Crown Courts and the Magistrates courts for sentences of below six months, and six months and over, are provided below. It is not possible to provide breakdowns by police force area because, due to low numbers, this would risk identification of the individuals concerned. Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent courts, taking into account the circumstances of each case.

Number of adult(1) male offenders with no previous convictions(2) sentenced to immediate custody by court type(3), sentence length(4)(5), and offence type; England and Wales(6), 2022-23(7):

Offence type8	Crown Court		Magistrates Court
	Less than 6 months	6 months or more	Less than 6 months	6 months or more
Violence against the person	31	950	69	40
Sexual offences	16	1,347	23	32
Robbery	1	118	0	5
Theft Offences	11	173	97	18
Criminal damage and arson	3	22	2	3
Drug offences	71	1,980	18	87
Possession of weapons	12	84	81	31
Public order offences	11	97	28	8
Miscellaneous crimes against society	57	429	50	27
Fraud offences	5	109	7	3
Summary offences excluding motoring	22	16	161	7
Summary motoring offences	1	2	54	1
All offences	241	5,327	590	262

Source: Ministry of Justice extract of the Police National Computer(9)

Notes:

1) Aged 18 or over at time of sentence.

2) Counting the number of male offenders who were convicted in court for the first time.

3) Includes crown and magistrates’ courts cases, where this information is recorded on the PNC.

4) 6 months has been assumed to be 180 days.

5) Excludes cases where the sentence length is not known.

6) England and Wales include all 43 police force areas plus the British Transport Police.

7) Includes financial year beginning April 2022 to March 2023.

8) For more detailed information on the offences included in each classification see the Offence Group Classifications file at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2023

9) The figures in these tables 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.

Answered by:
Heidi Alexander (Labour)
26 July 2024