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26 Feb 2009 : Column 995W—continued
(1) Farrington, D.P., Ditchfield, J., Howard. P. and Jolliffe, D. (2002) "Two intensive regimes for young offenders: a follow up evaluation: Home Office Research Finding 163". London: Home Office
Reparation by Offenders
John McDonnell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many times allegations of abuse towards offenders on community payback in (a) London, (b) Kent, (c) Essex, (d) the West Midlands and (e) Nottinghamshire and (f) Devon and Cornwall have been investigated since 1 December 2008. [257507]
Mr. Hanson: The number of incidents of abuse towards offenders on Community Payback which have been reported since 1 December up until 13 February 2009 in the probation areas of London, Kent, Essex, West Midlands, Nottinghamshire and Devon and Cornwall is shown in the table.
A review of these incidents shows that all, except one which concerned stone throwing by a child, involved verbal abuse or abusive gestures by members of the public towards offenders and staff working on Community Payback work groups on. In none of the cases was further investigation considered necessary.
| Probation area | Number of reported incidents | Number of offender hours worked 1 December-31 January |
Repossession Orders: Cleethorpes
Shona McIsaac: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many court orders have been issued for repossession of homes in Cleethorpes constituency in each of the last 20 years. [257440]
Bridget Prentice: Figures for Cleethorpes parliamentary constituency are not available. However, the following table shows the numbers of mortgage and landlord possession orders made in Grimsby county court.
The civil procedure rules state that all claims for the repossession of land must be commenced in the district in which the land is situated. However, Grimsby county court may cover areas other than the Cleethorpes constituency. Therefore not all possession orders made at this court necessarily relate to Cleethorpes constituency.
Court level statistics on mortgage and landlord repossession actions from 1987 to 2008 are available on the Ministry of Justice website at:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/mortgate landlordpossession.htm
These figures do not indicate how many homes have actually been repossessed. Repossessions can occur without a court order being made, while not all court orders result in repossession.
| Number of mortgage( 1) and landlord( 2,)( )( 3) possession orders( 4,)( )( 5 ) made in Grimsby county court, 1987 to 2008( 6,)( )( 7) | ||
| Mortgage possession orders made | Landlord possession orders made | |
| (1) Includes all types of mortgage lenders. (2) Includes all types of landlord whether social or private. (3) Landlord orders include those made under both standard and accelerated procedures. Landlord orders via the accelerated procedure enables the orders to be made solely on the basis of written evidence for shorthold tenancies, when the fixed period of tenancy has come to an end. (4) The court, following a judicial hearing, may grant an order for possession immediately. This entitles the claimant to apply for a warrant to have the defendant evicted. However, even where a warrant for possession is issued, the parties can still negotiate a compromise to prevent eviction. (5) Includes outright and suspended orders, the latter being where the court grants the claimant possession but suspends the operation of the order. Provided the defendant complies with the terms of suspension, which usually require the defendant to pay the current mortgage or rent instalments plus some of the accrued arrears, the possession order cannot be enforced. (6) Complete breakdown of landlord possession orders is only available from 1999 onwards. (7) Figures for the latest year are provisional. Source: Ministry of Justice | ||
Winchester Prison
Mr. Oaten: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 11 February 2009, Official Report, column 2094W, on prison accommodation, what the average period of time for which prisoners were detained in Winchester Prison was in each of the last three years; and how many prisoners detained in the prison had a registered home within 50 miles of the prison in each such year. [258912]
Mr. Malik: Prisoners move between prisons during the course of their sentence. Time spent in each prison is not recorded centrally. The following table shows the average period in months of those prisoners discharged from HMP Winchester from determinate sentences, including time spent on remand, spent in prison (this may include time spent in establishments other than HMP Winchester).
| Average time served ( months ) | |||
| 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | |
| Note: Data for 2008 for this part of the answer are not available. | |||
The number of prisoners held at HMP Winchester in each of the last three years with a home address within 50 miles of the prison (data from September in each year) is set out on the following table:
| Prisoners held within 50 miles of home address | |
| Note: Where no home address is listed for a male or female prisoner or young offender the committal court is used as a proxy address | |
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing, and have been tabulated according to availability of data.
Young Offenders: Reoffenders
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many days on average elapsed between arrest and sentence in cases involving persistent young offenders in each police force area in the most recent period for which figures are available; [256682]
(2) how many persistent and prolific offenders were identified in each police force area in 2007-08; [256688]
(3) how many persistent young offenders were registered in each police force area in 2008; how many offences were recorded where the offender was a persistent young offender in each area in that year; and what percentage of offences in each police force area this represents. [256755]
Mr. Hanson: A persistent young offender (PYO) is a young person aged 10-17 who has been sentenced guilty by any criminal court in the UK on three or more separate occasions for one or more recordable offence, and within three years of the last sentencing occasion is subsequently arrested or has an information laid against them for a further recordable offence.
This definition is designed to measure the speed and efficiency of the youth justice system; through monitoring the pledge to halve the average time from arrest to sentence for dealing with PYOs in England and Wales from 142 days in 1996 to 71 days. However, the definition is not designed to provide a reliable measure of the level of youth offending over time, and it will give a misleading picture of the true trend if used for this purpose.
The aforementioned pledge was first met over a full calendar year in 2002 and has been met in all but one calendar year since then. Youth sentencing is therefore now more timely, and for repeat offenders more frequent, than it used to be prior to 1997. As the PYO definition relies on repeat sentencing occasions, a side-effect of the Government’s success in bringing much swifter justice to young repeat offenders is that more of them end up being defined as PYOs.
Table 1 shows the number of PYOs, and the number of offences committed by them, for each police force area in 2008. These 2008 figures are provisional at present as the data for 2008 has not yet been finalised. Final figures for 2008 will be published in March 2009 by the Ministry of Justice.
Table 2 shows the total number of notifiable offences brought to justice, and the proportion of them that are attributable to PYOs, for each police force for 2007 (the most recent year for which these data are available). It is not possible to present a meaningful statistical comparison between police recorded crime and numbers of offences committed by PYOs, because the two measures have different counting bases.
On 10 December 2008, the Secretary of State for Justice announced in a written ministerial statement that the PYO pledge would be dropped with effect from the end of 2008. This is therefore the last year for which PYO statistics will be published and compiled.
Data from the performance management arrangements for the Prolific and other Priority Offender programme provide the number of such offenders identified through partnership arrangements in each police force area. The data are provided in table 3. The data cover the financial year 2007-08 from April 2007 up to March 2008, and are the most recent data available. These figures rely on the accuracy and completeness of the data provided locally by Prolific and Priority Offender schemes.
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