Figures for the number of persons sentenced for indictable offences in England and Wales in 2008 with at least 15 previous convictions are presented in the table.
Age at sentence Number of sentencing occasions1 Number of sentences where the offender had at least 15 previous convictions Percentage Juvenile (aged 10-17) 50,835 1,099 2.2 Young Adult (aged 18-20) 45,712 3,363 7.4 Adult (aged 21 and over) 228,945 77,037 33.6 Total2 325,616 81,504 25.0 1 Counts of offenders sentenced during the year, an offender may be counted more than once if he or she had been sentenced more than once. 2 Including offenders whose age at sentence had not been recorded on the PNC.
These figures are taken from table 6.4 of “Sentencing Statistics 2008” which was published on 28 January 2010 and can be found at:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/sentencingannual.htm
The figures have been drawn from the police’s administrative IT system, the police national computer, which, as with any large scale recording system, is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. The figures are provisional and subject to change as more information is recorded by the police.