§ Ms. GordonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people were arrested by the police in the United Kingdom in 1988; how many of those arrested were cautioned and how many were charged, and if he will provide a breakdown by police force area.
§ Mr. John PattenThe available information on arrests is given in the table. Numbers of persons who were cautioned and numbers prosecuted in each police force area for indictable offences are published annually in "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales", supplementary tables: latest figures are for 1987 (table S3.7(a) for cautions and table S3.3(a) for prosecutions). The coverage of figures on arrests is wider than that of indictable offences, so arrests are not directly related to cautions or prosecutions. An arrest may not result in the arrested person being cautioned or prosecuted.
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England and Wales 1987 Police force area Arrests1 Avon and Somerset 36,290 Bedfordshire 15,694 Cambridgeshire 17,239 Cheshire 23,310 Cleveland 24,670 Cumbria 14,591 Derbyshire 20,126 Devon and Cornwall 27,704 Dorset 13,478 Durham 21,762 Essex 35,140 Gloucestershire 12,428 Greater Manchester 109,963
Police force area Arrests1 Hampshire 52,052 Hertfordshire 20,538 Humberside 35,106 Kent 46,808 Lancashire 47,881 Leicestershire 20,945 Lincolnshire 17,282 London City of 3,702 Merseyside 54,088 Metropolitan Police n.a. Norfolk 17,232 Northamptonshire 14,193 Northumbria 60,206 North Yorkshire 16,656 Nottinghamshire 37,423 South Yorkshire 35,859 Staffordshire 34,585 Suffolk 12,010 Surrey 18,582 Sussex 32,448 Thames Valley 48,199 Warwickshire 10,625 West Mercia 25,027 West Midlands 93,562 West Yorkshire 70,640 Wiltshire 9,846 Dyfed-powys 8,803 Gwent 16,338 North Wales 18,092 South Wales 46,901 England and Wales 1,298,024 1 Covers notifiable offences and some summary offences. n.a. Not available.