Official Statistics

Proven reoffending statistics quarterly statistics - July 2011 to June 2012

This report provides key statistics on proven reoffending in England and Wales.

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This report provides key statistics on proven reoffending in England and Wales. It gives proven reoffending figures for adult and juvenile offenders who were released from custody, received a non-custodial conviction at court, received a caution, reprimand or warning, or tested positive for opiates or cocaine between July 2011 and June 2012. A proven reoffence is defined as any offence committed in a one year follow-up period that leads to a court conviction, caution, reprimand or warning in the one year follow-up. Following this one year follow-up, a further six month waiting period is allowed for the offence to be proven in court.

Overall - adult and juvenile offenders

Between July 2011 and June 2012, around 590,000 adult and juvenile offenders were cautioned, convicted (excluding immediate custodial sentences) or released from custody. Around 150,000 of these offenders committed a proven reoffence within a year. This gives an overall proven reoffending rate of 26.2%, representing a small drop of 0.6 percentage points compared to the previous 12 months and a slight fall of 1.6 percentage points since 2000. Since 2000, the overall proven reoffending rate for adult and juvenile offenders has remained fairly stable, fluctuating between around 26% and 29%.

In total, around 450,000 proven reoffences were committed over the one year follow-up period, with those that reoffended committing, on average, 2.9 reoffences each (both adults and juveniles).

Unsurprisingly, offenders with 11 or more previous offences have a higher re-offending rate than those with no previous offences – 47% compared to 10.5% in the most recent figures and the same pattern can be seen for previous years.

Serious reoffences: less than 1% of all proven reoffences committed over the one year follow-up period were serious violent or sexual offences with very little change since 2000.

Adult offenders

Around 520,000 adult offenders were cautioned, convicted or released from custody between July 2011 and June 2012 and around 130,000 of them committed a reoffence. This gives a proven re-offending rate of 25.1%. This represents a small decrease of 0.4 percentage points compared to the previous 12 months and a slight fall of 1.1 percentage points since 2000. Proven re-offending rates for adult offenders have remained fairly flat since 2000 fluctuating between around 25% and 28% and since 2004 have remained steady at around 25%

Adult offenders released from custody

The proven re-offending rate for adult offenders released from custody between July 2011 and June 2012 was 45.5%, a fall of 1.4 percentage points compared to the previous 12 months and a fall of 3.9 percentage points since 2000. Adults who served sentences of less than 12 months, reoffended at a rate of 57.8% compared to 34.1% for those who served sentences of 12 months or more. Since 2005, the overall rate for those released from custody has remained relatively stable at around 46% to 50%. The trends for those released from short and long sentences have both also remained broadly flat since 2005 and are consistent with the overall trend. The rate for those released from short sentences has been consistently higher compared to those released from longer sentences.

Adult offenders starting a court order

The proven re-offending rate for adult offenders starting a court order (Community Order or Suspended Sentence Order) was 33.8%, a small drop of 0.5 percentage points compared to the previous 12 months and down 4.1 percentage points since 2000.

Juvenile offenders

Around 66,000 juvenile offenders were cautioned, convicted or released from custody between July 2011 and June 2012 and around 23,000 of them committed a reoffence. This gives a proven reoffending rate of 35.3%, down 0.7 percentage points from the previous 12 months. While the rate has seen an overall increase of 1.7 percentage points since 2000, the cohort has changed considerably over this time; it has more than halved in size due to a substantial decrease in the number of offenders with no previous offences and for those receiving a reprimand or final warning. As such, the cohort is now comprised of offenders whose characteristics mean that they are more likely to reoffend than those in the 2000 cohort.

Juvenile offenders released from custody

The proven reoffending rate for juvenile offenders released from custody between July 2011 and June 2012 was 67.4%. This represents a fall of 5.3 percentage points compared to the previous 12 months and a fall of 9.4 percentage points since 2000.

This quarterly bulletin presents the proportion of offenders who reoffend (proven re-offending rate) and the number of proven reoffences those offenders commit by age group, gender, criminal history and offence type. Also included are proven reoffending rates for serious proven reoffending, different types of sentence, and for individual prisons, probation trusts, local authorities and youth offending teams.

Latest figures are provided with comparisons to July 2010 to June 2011 and the year 2000 in order to highlight long-term trends; 2000 is the earliest year for which proven reoffending data exist on a comparable basis.

The bulletin is produced and handled by the ministry’s analytical professionals and production staff.

Pre-release access of up to 24 hours is granted to the following persons:

Proven Re-offending Statistics Quarterly Bulletin

Ministry of Justice:

Secretary of State, Ministers of State, Permanent Secretary, Director General of Justice Policy Group, Deputy Director of Youth Justice Policy, Director of Sentencing and Rehabilitation, Director General of Corporate Performance Group, Director of Analytical Services, Director General of Transforming Justice, Head of National Operations Group, Head of Justice Statistics Analytical Services, Head of Sentencing Policy and Penalties Unit, Deputy Director for Offender Management Reform, Deputy Director of Reducing Reoffending Portfolio, Deputy Director for Reducing Reoffending, Head of National Operations Group (NOMS), Director General of National Offender Management Service (NOMS), Head of Public Protection Casework Section (NOMS), Head of Offender Management and Public Protection Unit (NOMS), Head of Performance, Information and Analysis Group (NOMS), Head of Research (YJB), and the relevant special advisers, analysts, policy officers and press officers.

Home Office:

Secretary of State, Ministers of State, Permanent Secretary, Programme Director of Crime and Policing Analysis Unit, Head of Reducing Reoffending Unit, and relevant special advisers, analysts, policy officers and press officers.

No 10: Special adviser to the Prime Minister

Treasury: Ministry of Justice Finances and Strategy, Public Services Group

Annex A - Interim reconviction figures for Peterborough and Doncaster Payment by Results pilots

In addition to those listed for the Proven Reoffending statistical bulletin, pre-release access of up to 24 hours to Annex A only is also granted to the following persons:

One official from each of the service providers for the Doncaster and Peterborough pilots respectively, Serco and Social Finance.

A member of the team at RAND Europe, who are conducting the independent process evaluation for the Peterborough pilot, received pre-release access to the Peterborough interim figures to enable their report “Phase 2 report from the Payment by Results Social Impact Bond Pilot at HMP Peterborough” to be published simultaneously with this statistical bulletin and include a reference to the latest statistics.

Exceptional pre-release access of up to 8 days (on 16 April 2014) is granted to the following persons:

Five analysts from the Reducing Reoffending Analysis Programme of the Ministry of Justice, to enable the inclusion of the relevant figures into the independent process evaluation reports for Peterborough and Doncaster.

Published 24 April 2014