§ Ms. Colquhounasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many convictions for soliciting there were in the years 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978 or until the latest available figures.
§ Mr. JohnThe available information is given in the following table:
PERSONS FOUND GUILTY OF OFFENCES AGAINST SECTION 1 OF THE STREET OFFENCES ACT 1959 AND SECTION 32 OF THE SEXUAL OFFENCES ACT 1956: ENGLAND AND WALES Number of persons Street Offences Act 1959 section 1 (female loitering or soliciting for purposes of prostitution) Sexual Offences Act 1956 section 32 (man soliciting or importuning in a public place for immoral purposes) 1970 … 451* 1971 2,856 532 1972 3,084 556* 1973 2,972 540 1974 2,959 545* 1975 3,289 614 1976 3,791 519 1977 3,836 509 … Not available. * Magistrates' courts only. The figures for the Crown court are not available but are likely to have been small.
§ Ms. Colquhounasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prostitutes were sentenced to imprisonment in the years 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978; and what was the average length of sentence and the cost of keeping a prisoner in prison in each year.
§ Mr. JohnInformation on the number of females who were given a suspended sentence of imprisonment or who were sentenced to immediate imprisonment by magistrates' courts for offences of prostitution is published annually in "Criminal182W Statistics, England and Wales" under offence classification 166—offences by prostitutes, tables 1(a), page 160, and table 2, page 264, of the volume for 1977, Cmnd. 7289. Information for 1978 is not yet available. To calculate accurately the arithmetic average length of sentence in each year would involve disproportionate cost and would not show the variation which occurs; the published tables include the distribution of the lengths of sentences of immediate imprisonment.
The average cost of keeping a female in custody in each financial year is published annually in the "Report on the work of the Prison Department"—Appendix 4, page 85, of the volume for 1977, Cmnd. 7290. Before 1972–73 the costs of detaining females were not separately recorded. The average cost in the financial year 1977–78 was £6,585 per annum.