Fixed Penalties
Home Department
Theresa May (Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, Leader of the House of Commons; Maidenhead, Conservative)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many penalty notices for disorder were issued for (a) theft, (b) criminal damage, (c) being drunk and disorderly and (d) dropping litter in each month since November 2004.
Vernon Coaker (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Gedling, Labour)
Penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) rolled-out to all police forces in England and Wales under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. Under the scheme, the police can issue a fixed penalty of £50 or £80 for a specified range of disorder offences including shop theft (under £200) and criminal damage (under £500).
Data on the number of PNDs (penalty notice for disorder) issued for the specified offence for each month since November 2004 are provided in the following tables. The data for 2006 are provisional. Finalised data for 2006 will be available this summer.
The figures show that the PND has been an increasingly useful disposal option for the police in tackling low-level antisocial behaviour, providing them with a simple, non-bureaucratic financial punishment for first-time offenders.
| Number of penalty notices for disorder issued to persons aged 16 and over for selected offences by month, November 2004 to December 2006( 1,2) | ||||||||
| Offence | Total | Jan uary | Feb ruary | Mar ch | Apr il | May | Jun e | |
| Drunk and disorderly | 2004 | 6,154 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2005 | 37,038 | 2,842 | 2,732 | 2,779 | 2,860 | 2,927 | 2,551 | |
| 2006(1) | 42,308 | 3,101 | 3,090 | 3,073 | 3,696 | 3,515 | 3,503 | |
| Criminal Damage (under £500) | 2004 | 1,103 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2005 | 12,168 | 813 | 754 | 786 | 906 | 982 | 990 | |
| 2006(1) | 19,654 | 1,505 | 1,377 | 1,312 | 1,562 | 1,584 | 1,710 | |
| Theft (retail under £200) | 2004 | 2,018 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2005 | 21,997 | 1,286 | 1,309 | 1,603 | 1,806 | 1,822 | 1,728 | |
| 2006(1) | 37,463 | 2,608 | 2,655 | 2,983 | 2,843 | 2,957 | 2,999 | |
| Depositing and leaving litter | 2004 | 49 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2005 | 737 | 32 | 47 | 56 | 54 | 75 | 73 | |
| 2006(1) | 1,125 | 77 | 89 | 69 | 109 | 118 | 124 | |
| Offence | Ju ly | Aug ust | Sep tember | Oct ober | Nov ember | December | |
| Drunk and disorderly | 2004 | — | — | — | — | 2,504 | 3,650 |
| 2005 | 3,092 | 2,969 | 2,822 | 3,400 | 3,296 | 4,768 | |
| 2006(1) | 3,481 | 3,441 | 3,545 | 3,753 | 3,304 | 4,806 | |
| Criminal Damage (under £500) | 2004 | — | — | — | — | 452 | 651 |
| 2005 | 1,158 | 1,158 | 1,052 | 1,193 | 1,093 | 1,283 | |
| 2006(1) | 1,746 | 1,919 | 1,806 | 1,778 | 1,579 | 1,776 | |
| Theft (retail under £200) | 2004 | — | — | — | — | 872 | 1,146 |
| 2005 | 1,700 | 1,746 | 2,005 | 2,048 | 2,432 | 2,512 | |
| 2006(1) | 2,722 | 3,148 | 3,346 | 3,498 | 3,873 | 3,831 | |
| Depositing and leaving litter | 2004 | — | — | — | — | 19 | 30 |
| 2005 | 60 | 53 | 63 | 71 | 66 | 87 | |
| 2006(1) | 87 | 77 | 108 | 104 | 87 | 76 | |
| (1) Data on PNDs issued in 2006 are unpublished and provisional (2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. | |||||||