§ Mr. OatenTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many offenders undergoing Probation Service aecredited programmes(a) breached the programme and (b) were sentenced to custody as a consequence of a breach in each of the last two financial years. [155054]
§ Paul GogginsDuring 2001–02 a total of 3,962 offenders undergoing accredited programmes failed to complete, of which 1,425 (36 per cent.) were because of breach. As a percentage of those dropouts recorded in 2002–03, breaches accounted for 37 per cent.
Offenders may not have completed their programme due to failure to complete other aspects of supervision, not necessarily due to failure to complete the programme itself.
Data on the exact number of offenders undergoing National Probation Service accredited programmes who were sentenced to custody as a consequence of a 537W breach is unavailable. At present we only monitor outcomes by sentence and not content. The introduction of Interim Accredited Programme Software later this year will facilitate to the monitoring of sentence by outcomes.
The number of offenders who were sentenced to immediate custody for breaches of community sentences in 2001 was 8,094. In 2002 the number was 9,071.