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Reoffenders

Volume 502: debated on Monday 7 December 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what the recidivism rate is for offenders convicted of (a) drug-related crime and (b) all other crimes. (303036)

Table 1 shows the one year adult reoffending rates for offenders in England and Wales released from custody in the first quarter (1 January to 31 March) of the years 2000 to 2007, who commenced a court order under probation supervision, or who were discharged from a custodial sentence given for a drug-related offence. The table shows the proportion of offenders who committed at least one further offence and the frequency of offences per 100 offenders. It also shows reoffending rates for the whole cohort.

Table 1: One-year reoffending rates, offenders commencing a court order or discharged from a custodial sentence, 2000-07 who were convicted for a drug-related offence

Number of offenders

Actual reoffending rate (Percentage)

Number of offences per 100 offenders

Drug-related offences

2000 Q1

3,045

31.1

92.9

2002 Q1

2,802

32.3

119.7

2003 Q1

2,822

33.2

117.4

2004 Q1

2,793

29.4

102.4

2005 Q1

2,591

31.4

100.5

2006 Q1

3,353

28.7

86.8

2007 Q1

3,390

30.6

93.1

All offences

2000 Q1

42,734

43.0

185.0

2002 Q1

43,247

45.5

212.7

2003 Q1

44,095

45.4

205.3

2004 Q1

46,532

42.9

181.3

2005 Q1

43,429

41.2

165.7

2006 Q1

50,281

38.6

144.0

2007Q1

50,085

39.0

147.3

Notes: 1. Data for 2001 are unavailable due to problems with archived data. 2. Any offences committed in the one-year follow up period are not necessarily of the same offence type as the index.

Please note that drug-related offences includes offences for importing and exporting drugs, for production and supply of drugs, and for drugs possession and small scale supply. There may be a range of offences that have a drug-related element which are not included in these data, but are contained within another offence group.

The table does not show reoffending rates for all drug-related crime as offenders only enter the cohort when they were convicted for their drug-related offence.

Further information on the one-year rates of reoffending can be found at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/reoffendingof adults.htm

The figures for reoffences include offences of all types. An offender whose original offence was drug-related and who reoffended, may not have committed any more drug-related offences.