Convictions: Theft

Nick Herbert
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what percentage of convictions for theft of personal property resulted in (a) custodial and (b) community sentences in (i) 1997 and (ii) 2006.

Mr. Hanson
The information notified by the courts and the police to the Ministry of Justice Court Proceedings Database does not enable theft of personal property to be positively identified. The information contained in the following table covers those theft offences where it is likely that all, or the majority, of the offences will relate to personal property.

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|                                                                                                                   |Number sentenced|Percentage given custody|Percentage given community sentences|
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|1997                                                                                                               |31,433          |18                      |33                                  |
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|2005                                                                                                               |22,792          |21                      |47                                  |
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|1 Theft from the person, in a dwelling, of a pedal cycle, of or from a motor vehicle and other miscellaneous theft.|                |                        |                                    |
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These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.

Figures for 2006 will be published in mid-December.