(2) how many (a) adults, (b) 18 to 21 year olds and (c) juveniles were sentenced for offences involving a knife or other bladed article in (i) Greater Manchester, (ii) Lancashire, (iii) London, (iv) the West Midlands, (v) West Yorkshire, (vi) the Thames Valley, (vii) Merseyside, (viii) Essex, (ix) Nottinghamshire and (x) South Wales in (A) August, (B) September, (C) October and (D) November 2008; how many in each age category in each area received a (1) custodial and (2) community sentence; and of those receiving a community sentence, how many were ordered to undertake a 300 hour community payback sentence on up to five days each week.
Finalised data for sentencing for knife and offensive weapon possession in the 10 Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) areas in 2008 will not be available until “Sentencing Statistics 2008” is published in November 2009. However, as part of TKAP, provisional data from management information systems are being gathered. These data are not sufficiently robust to be broken down into the detail requested, and will be subject to continual revision.
In the TKAP areas in August and September 2008 (the most recent period for which data are available), the Police National Computer records that 768 community sentences and 529 custodial sentences were given for knife and offensive weapon possession. More detail is given in the following table.
Age band Community sentences Custodial sentences1 10 to 17 307 36 18 to 20 139 104 21 and over 322 389 All ages 768 529 1 Excludes suspended sentence orders.
Data from the Probation Service relating to unpaid work requirements under Community Orders started in England and Wales with a sentence length of 300 hours; indicate fewer than 10 in 2007, and data are still being finalised for 2008 as it is unusual for the courts to sentence at the very maximum of any disposal. There were 269 Community Orders started for possession of offensive weapons in the 10 TKAP areas between July and September 2008 which did not involve unpaid work.
All the figures quoted in this answer have been taken from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
The number of persons given an unpaid work requirement with a Community or Suspended Sentence Order for the offence of possession of an offensive weapon in the 10 Tackling Knives Action Programme areas during the period July-September is shown as follows. Note that the figures stated are provisional and will not be finalised until the publication of the Quarterly Probation brief in January of next year.
Number July 187 August 152 September 173 Total 512
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems. As with any large scale recording system, these are subject to possible data entry and processing errors.