Police Cautions
Home Department
Paul Holmes (Chesterfield, Liberal Democrat)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police cautions were given for (a) violent offences, (b) sexual offences, (c) robbery, (d) burglary, (e) theft, (f) fraud and forgery, (g) criminal damage and (h) drugs offences in each of the last three years; and what proportion of such cases were first offences.
Alan Campbell (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Tynemouth, Labour)
h olding answer
The latest Information on the number of persons cautioned, broken down as requested is published in table 3.1 of the Ministry of Justice Statistical Bulletin 'Criminal Statistics, England and Wales 2008'.
Copies are available in the Library of the House, however the table is provided for the Member's convenience.
Additionally, data provided by the Ministry of Justice on the proportion of cautions, reprimands or warnings given to offenders with no previous caution or conviction from 2006 to 2008 is provided in table B.
The figures in table B have been drawn from the police's administrative IT system, the police national computer, which, as with any large scale recording system, is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing. The figures are provisional and subject to change as more information is recorded by the police. PNC data has been used for this table rather than data collection that forms the source of the published caution statistics, as the PNC provides information on the criminal history of offenders. As a result of the above, the two datasets are not directly comparable.
| Table 3.1: Offenders( 1 ) cautioned by sex and type of offence, 1998-2008: England and Wales | |||||||||||
| Number of offenders (thousand) | |||||||||||
| Sex and type of offence | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 |
| Males( 1) | |||||||||||
| Indictable offences | |||||||||||
| Violence against the person | 18.4 | 16.6 | 15.5 | 15.2 | 17.9 | 21.5 | 27.5 | 38.1 | 43.8 | 39.6 | 28.4 |
| Sexual offences | 1.7 | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.6 |
| Burglary | 7.5 | 6.8 | 5.8 | 5.7 | 5.0 | 4.9 | 4.9 | 5.6 | 6.8 | 6.2 | 4.8 |
| Robbery | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
| Theft and handling stolen goods | 51.4 | 46.4 | 40.0 | 36.6 | 30.7 | 30.7 | 34.2 | 38.0 | 42.0 | 41.8 | 37.7 |
| Fraud and forgery | 4.7 | 4.6 | 3.8 | 3.6 | 3.3 | 3.5 | 3.7 | 4.4 | 5.2 | 5.6 | 5.6 |
| Criminal damage | 2.4 | 2.6 | 2.8 | 2.9 | 2.6 | 3.1 | 4.6 | 6.0 | 7.5 | 7.4 | 6.5 |
| Drug offences | 52.3 | 43.5 | 36.4 | 34.9 | 39.8 | 40.2 | 28.5 | 30.1 | 32.5 | 37.6 | 41.0 |
| Other (excluding motoring offences) | 4.2 | 3.7 | 3.6 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 4.2 | 4.7 | 5.5 | 7.3 | 7.8 | 6.8 |
| Total (excluding motoring offences) 2| | 142.9 | 126.1 | 109.7 | 103.8 | 104.4 | 109.8 | 110.0 | 129.9 | 147.6 | 148.5 | 132.8 |
| Summary offences (excluding motoring offences) | 76.9 | 76.1 | 69.6 | 63.8 | 70.9 | 76.0 | 87.6 | 112.0 | 120.2 | 112.2 | |
| All offences(2 )(excluding motoring offences) | 219.8 | 202.3 | 179.3 | 171.8 | 168.2 | 186.0 | 217.5 | 259.6 | 120.2 | 112.2 | 245.0 |
| Females | |||||||||||
| Indictable offences | |||||||||||
| Violence against the person | 5.1 | 4.7 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 5.7 | 7.2 | 9.1 | 13.0 | 13.4 | 12.7 | 9.2 |
| Sexual offences | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Burglary | 0.9 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.6 |
| Robbery | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Theft and handling stolen goods | 32.2 | 29.1 | 27.6 | 26.9 | 23.5 | 23.8 | 27.8 | 29.6 | 30.3 | 31.0 | 26.1 |
| Fraud and forgery | 2.7 | 2.6 | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.3 | 2.5 | 2.8 | 3.0 | 2.7 |
| Criminal damage | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.2 |
| Drug offences | 6.4 | 5.8 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 5.1 | 5.5 | 4.1 | 4.3 | 4.9 | 5.4 | 5.9 |
| Other (excluding motoring offences) | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 1.7 |
| Total (excluding motoring offences)(2) | 48.8 | 44.5 | 41.2 | 40.1 | 38.5 | 41.0 | 46.3 | 53.0 | 56.2 | 56.6 | 47.6 |
| Summary offences (excluding motoring offences) | 19.2 | 19.4 | 18.5 | 18.0 | 18.6 | 20.2 | 23.5 | 28.5 | 34.2 | 37.6 | 34.3 |
| All offences(2 )(excluding motoring offences) | 68.1 | 63.9 | 59.7 | 58.1 | 57.2 | 61.2 | 69.8 | 81.4 | 90.3 | 94.2 | 81.9 |
| All offenders | |||||||||||
| Indictable offences | |||||||||||
| Violence against the person | 23.5 | 21.2 | 19.9 | 19.6 | 23.6 | 28.8 | 36.6 | 51.0 | 57.3 | 52.3 | 37.6 |
| Sexual offences | 1.7 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.4 | 1.6 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 2.0 | 1.7 |
| Burglary | 8.4 | 7.7 | 6.6 | 6.4 | 5.8 | 5.6 | 5.6 | 6.5 | 7.7 | 7.0 | 5.4 |
| Robbery | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.4 |
| Theft and handling stolen goods | 83.6 | 75.4 | 67.6 | 63.5 | 54.2 | 54.5 | 61.9 | 67.6 | 72.4 | 72.8 | 63.8 |
| Fraud and forgery | 7.4 | 7.2 | 6.2 | 5.8 | 5.3 | 5.5 | 6.0 | 6.9 | 8.0 | 8.6 | 8.2 |
| Criminal damage | 2.7 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 3.4 | 3.1 | 3.7 | 5.5 | 7.2 | 9.0 | 8.8 | 7.7 |
| Drug offences | 58.7 | 49.4 | 41.1 | 39.4 | 44.9 | 45.7 | 32.6 | 34.4 | 37.4 | 43.1 | 46.9 |
| Other (excluding motoring offences) | 5.0 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 4.1 | 4.4 | 5.3 | 6.0 | 6.9 | 9.4 | 10.0 | 8.6 |
| Total (excluding motoring offences)(2) | 191.7 | 170.6 | 150.9 | 143.9 | 142.9 | 150.7 | 156.3 | 182.9 | 203.8 | 205.1 | 180.3 |
| Summary offences (excluding motoring offences) | 96.2 | 95.6 | 88.1 | 85.9 | 82.4 | 91.1 | 99.5 | 116.0 | 146.2 | 157.8 | 146.6 |
| All offences(2) (excluding motoring offences) | 287.9 | 266.1 | 239.0 | 229.9 | 225.4 | 241.8 | 255.8 | 298.9 | 350.0 | 362.9 | 326.9 |
| (1) Other offenders i.e. companies, public bodies, etc. are included with males. (2) May not sum due to rounding. | |||||||||||
| Table B: Proportion of cautions, reprimands or warnings given to offenders with no previous caution or conviction recorded on the Police National Computer, England and Wales, 2006-08 | |||
| Percentage | |||
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | |
| Violence against the person | 61 | 58 | 58 |
| Sexual offences | 68 | 68 | 71 |
| Burglary | 62 | 59 | 56 |
| Robbery | 73 | 70 | 69 |
| Theft and handling stolen goods | 72 | 70 | 66 |
| Fraud and forgery | 65 | 65 | 63 |
| Criminal damage | 63 | 60 | 58 |
| Drug offences | 44 | 43 | 42 |
| Other indictable offences | 63 | 59 | 58 |
| All indictable | 62 | 60 | 57 |
| Summary offences | 61 | 58 | 55 |
| All offences | 62 | 59 | 56 |