Statement
My right honourable friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
The purpose of this Statement is to announce the publication of the results of an audit of Home Detention Custody (HDC) releases from 1 April 2003 to March 2008 who were then subsequently recalled following further charges and convicted. That information is today published and is attached to this Statement.
Context
Home Detention Curfew (HDC) came into effect on 28 January 1999. Eligible prisoners primarily serving between 3 months and less than 4 years may be released on HDC up to 135 days earlier than they would be otherwise, depending on their sentence length.
Registered sex offenders and foreign national prisoners who are liable to removal are statutorily excluded. Offenders serving sentences for certain serious violent offences, including prisoners serving sentences for terrorism legislation offences and prisoners with any history of sexual offending are presumed unsuitable unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Prisoners subject to the release arrangements of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 who are sentenced to 4 years or more are not statutorily ineligible for release on HDC but are presumed unsuitable.
Prisoners released on HDC are subject to an electronically-monitored curfew to their home, usually for 12 hours a day. Eligible prisoners must pass a risk assessment, which includes an assessment of home circumstances carried out by probation service, before release can be granted.
Breach of curfew conditions or breach of licence conditions, including alleged further offences or behavioural issues may result in executive recall to prison.
Previous questions in the House have asked how many offenders released on HDC have been recalled following further offences and what offences have been committed by them. We have recently undertaken a very detailed interrogation of the HDC re-offending data used previously. This has shown that we over-reported the number of offences committed by offenders on the scheme. We have taken the opportunity to revise our procedures for calculating HDC reoffending, correcting the previous errors and introducing an improved method for estimating reoffending by these offenders. Offender Management Statistical Analysis Services has assumed responsibility for collating this data in the future.
The revised annual reoffending figures for those on HDC from April 2003 to March 2008 are shown in Table 1 below. Table 2 shows the types of offences committed whilst on HDC.
Number of offenders Year Number of offenders on HDC Number of offenders who reoffended while on HDC Reoffending rate (%) 2003-2004 20,802 1,244 6.0 2004-2005 18,587 839 4.5 2005-2006 15,443 688 4.5 2006-2007 12,626 484 3.8 2007-2008 11,316 486 4.3
Number of offences Offence Category 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 Violence against the person 74 47 50 40 60 Sexual Offences 3 2 0 0 1 Burglary 120 82 81 60 54 Robbery 19 19 14 19 7 Theft and handling stolen goods 519 331 282 204 206 Criminal damage 15 21 5 9 4 Drug offences 210 142 108 77 88 Fraud and forgery 103 38 35 30 32 Indictable motoring offences 18 21 9 7 6 Other indictable offences 172 96 62 35 35 Summary motoring offences 658 398 294 172 128 Summary offences excluding motoring 396 336 236 169 199 All offences 2,307 1,533 1,176 822 820
Future Release of Data
The Ministry of Justice will consult on the publication of data in respect of offenders who breach their licence conditions (including those on Home Detention Curfew) and who are recalled. The Statistical Publication arising from this consultation will include data on re-offending by offenders subject to this scheme.
Methodological Note
Details of offenders starting on HDC are taken from data recorded by the Prison Service. Data on their reoffending is taken from an extract of the Police National Computer (PNC) held by the Ministry of Justice. Offenders recorded in the prison data who cannot be found on the PNC are excluded from the figures. Like any large scale recording system the PNC is subject to errors with data entry and recording. The PNC is regularly updated so that further analysis at a later date will generate revised figures.
The figures relate to offenders starting on Home Detention Curfew in each quarter. An offender is considered to have reoffended if, during their period on HDC, he or she committed an offence that was recorded on the PNC as resulting in a caution or conviction; for the offence to count the caution or conviction has to be given within 9 months of the end of the quarter in which the offender started on HDC. Offences resulting in a not guilty verdict or no further action or for which no final outcome is recorded on the PNC are not counted. Breach offences and offences from outside England and Wales are excluded.
Data on HDC start and end dates is taken from data recorded by Prison Service. Where no end date has been recorded or where the end date gives an HDC period longer than the maximum of 135 days an estimate of the length of the HDC period has been derived as follows: for offenders recorded as receiving a custodial sentence of 18 months or longer the HDC period has been set to 135 days; for sentences of less than 18 months the HDC period has been calculated as 1/4 of the sentence length.