HC Deb 07 November 2002 vol 392 cc856-7W
Mr. Wiggin

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will provide a breakdown of young offenders by(a) types of offence and (b) length of sentence in the last 12 months; [73765]

(2) what proportion of those convicted in the last 12 months were young offenders. [73856]

Hilary Benn

The information requested, relating to England and Wales in 2000, is contained in Table 1 (persons aged 10 and under 18 sentenced by offence group) and Table 2 (persons aged 10 and under 18 sentenced to immediate custody by length of sentence).

6 per cent. of those convicted of all offences in 2000 were aged 10 and under 18.

Statistics for 2001 will be available in December.

Table 2: Persons aged 10 and under 18 sentenced to immediate custody for all offences at all courts, by offence group and length of sentence, England and Wales, 20001
Length of sentence
Offence group Total sentenced to immediate custody 1 month and under Over 1 month up to 2 months Over 2 months up to 3 months Over 3 months up to 6 months
Indictable offences
Violence against the person 1,053 35 30 485
Sexual offences 97 1 23
Burglary 1,597 2 34 41 760
Robbery 1,005 7 5 242
Theft and handling stolen goods 1,406 6 124 72 890
Fraud and forgery 50 4 5 30
Criminal damage 164 11 2 67
Drug offences 164 1 3 6 56
Motoring offences 155 6 9 92
Other2 439 6 34 23 255
Summary3 734 8 89 57 579
Summary4 550 4 57 39 450
All offences 7,414 27 404 290 3,929

Length of sentence
Offence group Over 6 months up to 1 year Over 1 year up to 2 years Over 2 years up to 3 years Over 3 years up to 5 years Over 5 years up to 10 years Life
Indictable offences
Violence against the person 264 119 44 48 8 20
Sexual offences 13 20 16 20 3 1
Burglary 457 251 32 19 1
Robbery 256 253 142 91 9
Theft and handling stolen goods 256 57 1
Fraud and forgery 9 2
Criminal damage 39 27 8 4 6
Drug offences 39 28 15 15 1
Motoring offences 42 6
Other2 84 29 2 5 1
Summary3 1
Summary4
All offences 1,460 792 259 203 29 21
1 Staffordshire Police Force were only able to supply a sample data for magistrates courts proceeding covering one full week in each quarter for 2000. Estimates based on this sample are included in the figures, as they are considered sufficiently robust at this high level of analysis.
2 Excluding motoring offences
3 non-motoring offences
4 motoring offences