The average length of tariff given to offenders sentenced to a mandatory life sentence in each of the last 10 years, as at 5 February 2010, is shown in the following table.
Year of sentence Number sentenced Average days Average in years (1 year = 365 days) 2000 251 5,228 14.32 2001 278 5,111 14.00 2002 304 4,814 13.19 2003 280 4,992 13.68 2004 355 5,298 14.52 2005 366 5,891 16.14 2006 383 6,402 17.54 2007 353 5,806 15.91 2008 435 6,556 17.96 2009 317 6,402 17.54 Totals 3,322 — —
The figures include those sentenced to a mandatory life sentence that subsequently had their sentence quashed or died. In a further 144 cases of prisoners sentenced over this period, the courts have yet to determine the length of tariff or the prisoner was given a life sentence by another jurisdiction. The figures also exclude those life sentence prisoners who have been given a whole life tariff. There were 19 whole life tariffs handed down by the courts during this period.
The figures were taken from the Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD) in the National Offender Management Service, and, as with any large scale recording system, it is subject to possible errors arising from either data entry or processing. The PPUD is a live database, updated on a regular basis. As a result, snapshots taken in consecutive days will contain differences reflecting updates.