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11 Mar 2008 : Column 384W—continued
Rehabilitation Services
Nick Herbert: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what role his special advisers play in contracting for rehabilitation services. [192499]
Re-offenders
Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what account was taken of “A Five Year Strategy for Protecting the Public and Reducing Re-offending”, published in February 2006, in producing his Department’s Strategic Plan for Reducing Re-offending 2008-2011; and what progress has been made on the 2006 Strategy’s recommendations on (a) more use of intermittent custody for people with family responsibilities and (b) the vision for community prisons. [192618]
Mr. Hanson: The Government have just completed their consultation on the new Strategic Plan for Reducing Re-offending 2008-11. The plan will be published in the late spring and will effectively link cross government partners to the delivery of objectives to reduce re-offending and protect the public. The consultation period ensured that the Government gathered the views of our partners at a national, regional and local level on how we can best build on our successes to date, such as the roll out of offender management for those offenders who pose the greatest risk of harm to the public, and working with Local Strategic Partnerships in negotiations around Local Area Agreements, both actions contained in the Five Year Strategy for Protecting the Public and Reducing Re-offending.
In terms of the two specific recommendations highlighted:
(a) Intermittent custody: following trials of intermittent custody at HMP Kirkham and HMP Motion Hall from January 2004 to November 2006, the Government decided to make no further use of the sentence for the time being.
(b) Community prisons: the current strategy for the prison estate was outlined in “Penal Policy—a background paper” published on 9 May 2007. In her “Review of Women with Particular Vulnerabilities in the Criminal Justice System” Baroness Corston recommended that existing women’s prisons should be replaced with suitable, geographically dispersed, small, multi-functional custodial centres. Such centres have aspects in common with a community prison concept. A small project is presently under way as part of the Government’s response to the report of Baroness Corston looking at the merits of a pilot unit to test how a small, multi-functional, custodial centre for women might work.
Re-offenders: Costs
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 1 February 2008, Official Report, column 730W, to the hon. Member for Harborough, on re-offenders: costs, what methodology the Social Exclusion Unit used to estimate the costs of crime committed by ex-prisoners in its 2002 estimate. [192457]
Mr. Hanson: The Social Exclusion Unit used the overall costs of crime calculated by the Home Office (£60 billion), and estimated that at least 18 per cent. of total crime is accounted for by re-offending by recent ex-prisoners. Home Office cost of crime estimates used by the Social Exclusion Unit are published in: “The Economic Social Costs of Crime”, Home Office Research Study 217. These estimates have since been updated by the Home Office with methodological improvements and are published in: “The Economic Social Costs of Crime against Individuals and Households 2003-04”, Home Office Online Report 30/05.
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 1 February 2008, Official Report, column 730W, to the hon. Member for Harborough, on re-offenders: costs, what estimate he has made of the cost of crime committed by ex-prisoners in England and Wales in each of the last five years, using the methodology used by the Social Exclusion Unit in its 2002 estimate. [192458]
Mr. Hanson:
There are currently no year-on-year estimates of the costs of crime or re-offending to the economy, although the Home Office published an estimate of the total cost of crime to individuals and households in 2003-04, part of which will be attributable to re-offending. Ministry of Justice analysts are currently developing the knowledge-base concerning the costs of re-offending
and how this varies by the persistence and frequency of re-offending and the type of offences committed.
Sentencing
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many persons have been sentenced by the courts to a period of less than 12 months in custody in 2008; [192586]
(2) how many persons were sentenced to a period of custody of less than 12 months in each quarter in (a) 2006 and (b) 2007. [192587]
Mr. Hanson: The latest published data are for 2006 and can be found in the following table. The figures for 2007 will be published later in the year. Figures for 2008 will be published towards the end of 2009.
| Number of persons sentenced( 1) to immediate custody where the sentence length is less than 12 months, all courts, England and Wales, 2006 | |
| Number of persons | |
| (1) Principal offence basis. Note: These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Source: RDS-NOMS, Ministry of Justice 6 March 2008 Ref: PQ(RN)114-08 | |
Mr. Llwyd: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many individuals were sentenced by magistrates to a term of imprisonment of less than 12 months between January 2007 and January 2008. [192610]
Mr. Hanson: The latest published data are for 2006. The figures for 2007 will be published later in the year. Figures for 2008 will be published towards the end of 2009. The published information can be found at:
Sentencing: Domestic Violence
Mr. Vara:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people were given a custodial sentence for
domestic violence offences in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement. [192676]
Mr. Hanson: It is not possible to identify separately domestic violence offences on the Court Proceedings Database as the circumstances of offences are not collected centrally.
Young Offenders
James Brokenshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many first-time entrants into the youth justice system aged 10 to 17 years there were in each of the last three years. [191389]
Beverley Hughes: I have been asked to reply.
Data collected from youth offending teams in England and Wales, and verified by the Youth Justice Board, indicate that there were 97,329 first-time entrants to the criminal justice system aged 10 to 17 in 2005-06 (the first year for which data are available), and 93,730 during 2006-07. Figures for 2007-08 will be published later this year. Although care is taken in collating and analysing the returns used to compile the figures, the data are subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what mechanisms exist for the transfer of inmates from young offender institutions to adult prison custody; under what circumstances inmates are transferred; on how many occasions transfers took place in each of the last 24 months; and if he will make a statement. [192683]
Maria Eagle: Prisoners are normally moved from the young adult estate to the adult estate when they reach age 21. Prison Service Instruction 45/2004 includes provision for assessments of young adult prisoners of any age who are criminally and behaviourally sophisticated beyond their years, and may require the security of the adult estate. Such a move would require agreement by the area manager. Figures on the number of such transfers are not available centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost by carrying out a national survey of young adult prisons.
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