§ Mr. BeithTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for the last year for which figures are264W available, what was the average age of people who committed a (a) violent offence, (b) property offence and (c) sex offence; and if he will make a statement. [92890]
§ Mr. BoatengInformation as to the age of offenders is available only for those cautioned or convicted. The average age cannot be calculated exactly from data on the Home Office Cautions and Court Proceedings databases, but the median age in 1997 for violent offence was 23 years, for property offences it was 22 years; and for sex offences it was 33 years. The table shows the number of persons cautioned or convicted from which the median age has been derived.
Number of persons either cautioned or convicted for an indictable violent 1, property 2 or sex offence in England and Wales by age, 1997 Age Violent offence 1 Property offence 2 Sex offence 10 135 1,355 16 11 350 2,962 19 12 841 5,611 66 13 1,654 9,158 142 14 3,067 13,258 248 15 4,243 15,747 241 16 4,653 16,772 243 17 4,636 18,022 206 18 4,071 17,171 182 19 3,390 13,998 142 20 2,842 12,407 104 21 2,591 11,479 101 22 2,472 10,736 120 23 2,208 10,027 113 24 2,274 9,548 137 25 and under 303 10,058 40,294 670 30 and under 35 7,892 27,538 764 35 and under 40 5,144 16,231 636 40 and under 50 5,148 16,538 1,009 50 and under 60 2,124 7,414 703 60 and over 1,099 3,513 579 All ages 70,892 279,779 6,441 1 Violence against the person, sex and robbery offences 2 Burglary, theft, handling stolen goods, fraud, forgery and criminal damage offences 3 Includes persons, cautioned or convicted of an indictable offence, given the default age of 25 where the exact age was not known