The most recent assessment of community sentencing is published in the Statistics and Research Bulletin 3/2006 “Reconviction in Northern Ireland: Results from the 2002 cohort”. This bulletin monitors progress against the Northern Ireland Office public service agreement to reduce reconvictions. The following table details the community sentencing data and shows that the actual reconviction rate was 9.9 per cent. lower than the predicted reconviction rate.
Community sentencing1 Total 1,448 Reconvicted 582 Actual (percentage) 40.2 Predicted (percentage) 44.6 Difference (percentage)2 9.9 1 Includes community service orders, attendance centre orders, probation orders and combination orders. 2 Percentage difference = (predicted — actual)/predicted.