Criminal Justice Statistics for 2021
Last week (19 May 2022), the Ministry of Justice and the Office for National Statistics published their Criminal Justice Statistics bulletin for 2021. The headline figure (for me, at least) was the fact that the average custodial sentence length (ACSL) for indictable offences was 24.9 months in 2021, up from 21.1 months in 2020. You only have to know that the comparable figure for a decade ago (2011) was 16.8 months to see the size of the increase. Part of the increase in prison sentences is attributable to the fact that there is a greater proportion of people convicted of serious crimes in prison now, but this certainly does not explain a rise of almost 50% (48.2%).
In the rest of this blog post, I share key trends from the new statistics. Those who prefer a visual representation can see the excellent infographic that the ONS has published to summarise the state of the criminal justice system which I have reproduced below.
Arrests and prosecutions
The number of defendants prosecuted at all courts increased by 16% in the latest year’ showing a partial recovery of court processes after the pandemic. In 2021 there was a 9% increase in police recorded crime (including fraud), and a 17% decrease in the number of offences charged by the police. This represents a continuation of trends prior to the pandemic. In 2021, the volume of cases disposed at Magistrates’ courts increased 12% to 1.17 million from a series low of 1.04 million in 2020 – this remains 19% lower than 2019. Disposed cases at Crown courts increased 22% to 95,500 in 2021, from 78,100 in 2020 – this remains 4% lower than 2019.
Remands
The stats show a welcome reduction in the number of people being remanded to custody which has reached all-time highs in recent months. In 2021, 9% of defendants were remanded in custody by police prior to appearing at court in comparison to 8% in 2019 and 11% in 2020. The proportion of defendants remanded in custody at magistrates’ court (4%) and at the Crown Court (37%) both fell compared with 2020 to return to the same proportions as in 2019.
Sentencing
The total number of offenders sentenced increased in the latest year by 18% to 962,000, however, this figure is down 19% from 2019 and has decreased 27% since 2011. This decrease from pre-pandemic levels was likely driven by a 40% decrease in summary non-motoring offences compared to 2019 (and accounts for 80% of the overall drop in sentences since 2019). All other offence types
have returned close to pre-pandemic levels. Fines remained the most common sentence, accounting for 77% of all sentences, an increase of 1 percentage point from 2020. The custody rate for indictable offences in 2021 was 32%, a decrease of 2 percentage points from 2020 – a break from the steady increase since 2011.
The bulletin includes an interesting chart (reproduced below) showing that the proportion of people receiving short sentences (6 months or less) has fallen by 10 percentage points over the last four years, while the proportion sentenced to long sentences (over 12 months) has increased by 9 percentage points during the same time period.
Thanks to Ichigo for kind permission to use the header image in this post which was previously published on Pixabay.
