§ Mr. Hancockasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many of those convicted for robbery or mugging in Portsmouth in each of the past 10 years have been (a) given a custodial sentence, (b) given a suspended sentence, (c) fined and (d) given a community service order;
(2) how many people were prosecuted for offences related to robbery or muggings committed in Portsmouth in each of the last 10 years;
(3) how many of the robberies or muggings committed in Portsmouth in each of the last 10 years were committed by people in the 14 to 25 years age group.
§ Mr. MellorThe available information, which may be incomplete, is given in the table.
In the absence of a caution or a prosecution the age of an offender is not known.
To produce corresponding figures for earlier years would involve disproportionate cost.
§ Mr. MellorThe term mugging has no legal definition; most offences of the type frequently referred to as "mugging" are recorded as offences of robbery. The information readily available to me relates to offences of robbery recorded by the police in police force areas, statistics of which are published annually in "Criminal Statistics, England and Wales" (table 2.6 of the issue for 1984, Cmnd. 9621), and in "Criminal Statistics 177W Supplementary Tables" (volume 3, table S3.1 of the issue for 1984). No information is available to me on numbers of persons injured hospitalised or disabled as a result of robberies or "muggings".