The available information is contained in the following table.
Data held by the Ministry of Justice show the number of offenders sentenced to an immediate custodial sentence. It is not possible to determine how many of those offenders began serving those sentences immediately as some may have been released having served their sentence on remand.
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Total sentenced 3,341 3,788 3,548 3,518 4,303 5,269 5,311 5,802 5,957 6,284 6,121 Total immediate custody 372 550 534 499 589 766 755 803 965 1070 1060 Up to 3 months 302 429 410 357 418 542 525 543 602 601 621 Over 3 months up to 6 months 59 99 109 130 156 187 192 225 304 398 349 Over 6 months up to 1 year 1 11 8 5 9 23 20 26 33 45 38 1 year exactly 4 7 3 6 1 6 10 4 16 15 33 Over 1 year up to 18 months 6 2 4 1 4 7 5 5 9 8 12 Over 18 months up to 3 years — 2 — — 1 1 3 — 1 3 7 1 These data are on the principal offence basis Note: These figures 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.