§ Mr. Cormackasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how 116W many offenders were sentenced to terms of imprisonment for non-violent indictable offences during 1977 and 1978; and how many of these were first-time offenders.
§ Mr. WhitelawThe number of persons sentenced to immediate imprisonment in 1977 was published by offence in tables 1(a) and 5(a) of the Criminal Statistics, England and Wales, 1977 (Cmnd. 7289). Corresponding information for 1978 is not yet available. Analysis of the records of a sample of those sentenced in 1977 for indictable offences other than violence against the person, sexual offences or robbery indicates that the proportion with no known previous convictions for non-motoring " standard list " offences was between 7 per cent. and 10 per cent. The " standard list includes all indictable offences and certain of the more serious non-indictable offences.