To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the reoffending rate for offenders resident in each police force area was in each year since 1997. (289393)

The most recent reoffending rates are shown in the table. These data can be found in “Local Adult Reoffending 1 January 2008-31 December 2008 England and Wales” which was published 14 May 2009. This is available online at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/docs/local-adult-reoffending-2008-ii.pdf

Further details on local adult reoffending are contained in this publication.

Local adult reoffending rates by probation area are not available for periods prior to 1 October 2007-30 September 2008.

The local reoffending figures are produced by aggregating the data of four snapshots of the probation case load at the end of each quarter. Therefore the number of offenders quoted in the table is approximately four times the number of offenders on the case load at any one time.

Probation areas are coterminous with police force areas except in the case of London probation, which covers both the Metropolitan and the City of London police forces.