HC Deb 01 February 1994 vol 236 cc649-50W
Mr. McFall

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list those research projects(a) undertaken internally by his Department and (b) commissioned by his Department from external contractors, within the last five years, which have gathered data on the employment status (i) of persons convicted of crimes and (ii) of persons given custodial sentences.

Mr. Maclean

This information is not routinely collected, and special research exercises are required to do so. The national prison survey, carried out in 1991, provides the information for a representative sample for persons given custodial sentences. Results are published in "Home Office Research Studies" No. 128. The research and planning unit has recently commissioned a similar survey on offenders on probation "People On Probation", results of which will be available around the end of the year.

Many of the projects in the research and planning unit's programme include reference of some sort to employment status. The main projects are listed in the table, including publication details of those completed.

Internal projects

  1. 1. The National Prison Survey 1991: main findings, (HORS No. 128).
  2. 2. Developments in the use of compensation orders magistrates' courts since 1988, (HORS No. 126).
  3. 3. Deductions from benefit for fine default, (RPU Paper No. 60).
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  4. 4. Unit fines: experiments in four courts, (RPU Paper No. 59).
  5. 5. Day Centre reconviction rates, British Journal of Criminology 32(3) 1992.
  6. 6. People on probation.
  7. 7. Implementation and use of the combination order.
  8. 8. Predicting sexual reconviction.
  9. 9. Reconviction Prediction score.

External projects

  1. 10. Custodial and post-custodial work and employment.
  2. 11. Managing the needs of women prisoners.
  3. 12. Imprisonment and family ties.
  4. 13. The dynamics of recidivism.