The number of persons proceeded against at magistrates courts and found guilty at all courts for offences of criminal damage, including acts of vandalism, in the Essex police force area and England from 2000-07 (latest available) is shown in the following table.
Court proceedings data held by the Ministry of Justice do not enable offences involving vandalism to be separately identified from other acts of "criminal damage."
Data are given in the table for Essex police force area. It is not possible to further break down data to constituency level (i.e. West Chelmsford) as this level of detail is not held centrally.
Data for 2008 will be available in the autumn of 2009.
Proceeded against Found guilty 20004 Essex 1,484 938 England 53080 35,322 2001 Essex 1,530 1,027 England 53,541 34,734 2002 Essex 1,425 957 England 55,681 36,337 2003 Essex 1,445 974 England 57,099 37,979 2004 Essex 1,627 1,136 England 56,347 40,220 2005 Essex 1,801 1,299 England 53,635 39,933 2006 Essex 1,671 1,302 England 52,736 40,333 2007 Essex 1,587 1,311 England 52,790 41,981 1 The offence of vandalism cannot be separated from other criminal damage offences. 2 The statistics relate to persons for whom these offences were the principal offence for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences the principal offence is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe. 3 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 courts and police forces. 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. 4 Staffordshire Police Force were only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates' courts for the year 2000. These data are included in the figures given for England. Source: Office for Criminal Justice Reform - Evidence and Analysis Unit.