Out of Court Disposals

Out of court disposals (OOCDs) are sanctions used by the police to address offences without the need to be dealt with at court. There were 212,000 OOCDs in 2024, which represented an overall increase of 5% when compared to the previous year. This was driven by an increase of 11% in community resolutions, with over 164,000 issued, the highest level across the time series. This is a 56% increase on 5 years ago with community resolutions now accounting for 77% of the total number of OOCDs.

There was a collective decrease of 5,800 across all other OOCDs when compared to 2023. Cannabis/khat warnings and penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) decreased by 68% and 44%, respectively, while cautions decreased by 2%.

Prosecutions and Convictions

In the latest year, increased volumes of prosecutions were seen across all offence groups except summary nonmotoring (3% fall). The largest increases came from theft offences and violence against the person offences. Theft prosecutions are now at their highest level since 2018. The majority of the increase in theft prosecutions is due to a 40% increase in prosecutions for theft from shop offences.

Sexual offence prosecutions increased for the sixth consecutive year since 2018 and are now at a series high.

Indictable convictions also increased, by 12% in the latest year. The largest increase was in theft offences (up 28%), which as with prosecutions is driven by increase in theft from shops. Violence against the person has also had large volume increases (up 3,000), driven by assaults, specifically assault of an emergency worker.

Sentencing

The number of offenders sentenced to immediate custody increased 11% on the previous year, up to 79,800. The custody rate for indictable offences fell slightly to 33% in the latest year, from 34% in 2023. However, this was up more than six percentage points from the level a decade ago (27%). The highest custody rates in 2024 were for sexual offences (56%) and robbery (55%).

The number of offenders receiving a custodial sentence of 12 months or more increased by 5%. This was primarily driven by increases in these sentences issued for public order and miscellaneous crimes against society offences.

The overall ACSL was 19.9 months in the latest year, down 1.1 months from the previous year (21.0) but maintaining higher levels seen since 2021. For indictable offences, the ACSL also dropped to 22.0 months, down 1.4 months compared to 2023 (23.4) but remains well above levels seen prior to 2021. The fall in the latest year was mostly driven by an increase in the number of sentences for theft offences, which tend to attract shorter sentences. ACSL for theft offences was a series low of 8.1 months.

The ACSL fell for several offence groups, with some notable exceptions including increases for sexual offences (up 1.8 months) reporting a series high of 70.3 months, and for public order offences (up 1.4 months), reflecting outcomes of the civil disorder in summer 2024.

Summer Disorder

This edition of the statistics include additional information detailing proceedings and sentence outcomes for offenders involved in the summer 2024 civil disorder.

Between August and December 2024, there were 912 defendants proceeded against for ‘Civil Disorder’ related offences. Of these, 71% were for public order offences – most of which were for ‘violent disorder’ offences, followed by Criminal damage and arson (5%), and Violence against the person, Theft and Possession of weapons offences at 4%.

Around 7% of public order offences specifically included racially or religiously aggravated fear or harassment, and offences intended or likely to stir up racial hatred. There was a 15% increase in public order offences prosecutions in 2024 compared to 2023, this was the highest volume seen in the past 10 years.

From August to December 2024, there were 680 offenders convicted. 72% of convictions were for public order offences, 7% for summary non-motoring offences and 5% for theft offences.

It’s important to note that more serious offences dealt with at magistrates’ court and subsequently committed to the Crown Court for trial or sentence are counted separately at each stage of the process. As a result, some offences committed during the summer disorder will be part of ongoing cases at the Crown Court.

There were 651 offenders sentenced, of which 76% were sentenced to immediate custody. The average custodial sentence length was 23.3 months, with sentence lengths spanning from up to and including 1 month to 9 years. The longest sentence lengths of between 4 and 9 years were given to those charged with arson endangering life, racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage, and riot related offences.

The geographical areas affected by the summer disorder spanned across numerous police force areas in the UK, but there were particular concentrations in Merseyside (16% of prosecutions), Greater Manchester (12%) and Cleveland (11%).

Conclusion

This dataset provides more detail underlying the current projections of a rapidly growing prison population.