My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has not met the Sentencing Guidelines Council (SGC) to discuss sentences for convicted shoplifters.
The requested court proceedings data are provided in the following table.
In addition to this, the penalty notice for disorder (PND) scheme, brought into effect in all police forces in England and Wales in 2004, gives the police powers to issue persons believed to be committing offences of shoplifting with an £80 fixed penalty notice. No admission of guilt is required and payment of the penalty discharges all liability for the offence. The number of PNDs issued for shoplifting in the Cambridgeshire police force area were six in 2004, 148 in 2005 and 116 in 2006—January to June provisional.
Of which: Cautioned Found guilty Sentenced Community sentence Immediate custody Otherwise dealt with Other3 1997 450 502 503 96 35 5 367 1998 411 594 591 118 56 16 401 1999 433 704 701 120 82 14 485 2000 532 872 869 238 101 14 516 2001 430 895 897 264 122 15 496 2002 428 857 853 330 97 14 412 2003 420 791 791 281 113 15 382 2004 550 717 716 272 86 15 343 1 These data are on the principal offence basis. 2 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the police forces and courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. 3 Includes defendants fined and given an absolute/conditional discharge. Source: RDS—Office for Criminal Justice Reform