Child abuse is not a recorded offence type in itself.
Since March 2001 offenders required to register under the Sex Offender Act 1997 (now replaced by part 2 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003) have been statutorily excluded from being considered for home detention curfew. Prior to March 2001 such prisoners were presumed unsuitable for release unless there were exceptional circumstances. Since July 2003 prisoners with any history of sexual offending and those serving a current sentence for offences involving child cruelty, neglect or similar offences involving violence against children have been presumed unsuitable for release unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Statistics which apply solely to offences against children of a violent or sexual nature would not be available without disproportionate cost and would not be available for each London borough in the Metropolitan area.
Information on the numbers of prisoners released under the home detention curfew scheme from all prison establishments in England and Wales can be found in the following table:
Number/percentage 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Number released on: HDC 14,847 15,510 13,649 20,456 21,188 19,294 17,296 Males 13,523 14,005 12,121 18,509 19,050 17,159 15,392 Females 1,324 1,505 1,528 1,947 2,138 2,135 1,904 Population on HDC at end of year2 2,000 1,700 1,700 3,100 3,700 3,400 3,300 Notes: 1. This table is taken from table 10.3 in the Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2005. Information showing the figures by individual London boroughs within the Metropolitan Police district is not held centrally. 2. These figures 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.