THEEVIDENCE.

National data

Repeat offending

Ministry of Justice research covering 2000–2021 found that about one in ten offenders accounted for roughly half of sentencing occasions in England and Wales. Prolific offenders averaged around 20 sentencing occasions each, compared with around 2.5 for other offenders.

These records capture offences that reached a conviction or caution. They show how heavily known offending is concentrated among a small group.

Policy think tank Onward’s July 2019 study, Super-prolific criminals: The case for action, examined sentencing records from 2007–2018. It identified more than 200,000 non-prison sentences involving offenders with at least 25 previous convictions, including about 32,000 with at least 50 and 2,450 with more than 100.

Theft and robbery

The Ministry of Justice’s 2000–2021 figures show prolific offenders averaged 6.55 theft convictions or cautions each, compared with 0.45 for other offenders: around fifteen times as many.

Home Office analysis published in September 2024 estimated that 78,000 people had phones or bags snatched in the preceding year, an increase of more than 150%.

A March 2026 report found that 95% of London phone-theft cases were closed without a suspect, and about 0.3% resulted in a charge.

Police-recorded robbery rose by nearly 10% in the year to March 2024.

Police recorded 507,086 shoplifting offences in the year to March 2026, down 4% on the previous year.

Retailers have put chocolate in security boxes and trialled camera patrols and smoke machines to deter theft.

Knife crime

In 2023, the Metropolitan Police recorded around 40 knife crimes a day, up 20% on 2022.

Knife and offensive-weapon sentencing statistics for July–September 2023 show around a third of sentenced offenders had a previous relevant conviction.

Sexual offences and murder

Figures published in February 2023 showed that offenders under probation supervision committed around three murders or major sexual offences a week. Probation means supervision in the community, either as part of a community sentence or after release from prison.

In the 2021 case R v AWA, the Court of Appeal considered a rape sentence of three years and ten months for a man with 114 previous convictions. The case shows the scale of the criminal record a court can encounter when sentencing a serious sexual offence.

Local data

Targeted policing

After police arrested a City of London bike-theft gang in November 2020, recorded bike thefts fell from 68 in August 2020 to seven in January 2021: a fall of about 90%. CCTV and a tracked stolen bike helped police find a warehouse holding 57 stolen bikes.

Operation Cross in Hemel Hempstead targeted shoplifting, drug dealing and associated crime through patrols, hotspot policing and community intelligence. By June 2023, it had made 40 arrests and recorded a 72% fall in local reported crime.

In Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire, a six-month police operation in 2023 made seven arrests and recorded a 64% fall in burglaries.

London phone theft

Sonny Stringer stole 24 phones in a single morning in London in March 2024. CCTV operators tracked him as he fled on an electric bike, helping police catch him. In August 2024, he received two years in prison for theft and dangerous driving.

Repeat offenders and their sentences

Owen Hill had 34 previous convictions covering 76 offences, including burglary, robbery, theft, assault and drug possession. A court postponed sentencing for five months after he carried a blade and resisted police; this is a deferred sentence. He later received a three-month suspended prison sentence: he stayed in the community, with prison available if he breached the conditions. Further offending led to a 12-month community order, 25 rehabilitation days and £200 compensation to an injured officer.

Joseph Phillips had more than 300 previous offences, over half involving theft. After admitting two thefts from cars, he received a 42-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months, allowing him to remain in the community subject to the court’s conditions.

Arthur McLean received a conditional discharge for his 304th offence shortly after leaving prison for battery and a public-order offence. A conditional discharge means no immediate punishment, provided the offender commits no further offence during the specified period. McLean shoplifted again within days and received six weeks in prison for each of his latest theft offences.

By October 2024, Tanya Liddle’s record included 499 offences and 172 convictions. She received three months in prison for contempt of court.

Darren Smith had 96 convictions covering 226 offences. After assaulting a doctor and setting a fire at a Halifax hospital, he received four years in prison.

James Bernstead had 129 previous convictions. Further theft led to a prison sentence of two and a half years.

International data

In New York City, 327 people accounted for nearly a third of shoplifting arrests in 2022. They were arrested more than 6,000 times between them.

A 2014 Swedish population study found that about 1% of the population accounted for 63% of violent-crime convictions. A smaller group, around 0.1% of the population, accounted for 19.8%.

Court capacity and waiting times

In June 2026, the Crown Court had 80,829 open cases, up 3% on the previous year. Of these, 23,706 had been open for at least a year and 7,255 for two years or more. Cases open for at least a year rose by 22% and represented 31% of the age-classified caseload.

The open Crown Court caseload still rose by 392 cases in the quarter to June 2026. Open cases include new and progressing cases, not only overdue trials.

Crown Court sitting days are uncapped for 2026–27, within a £2.785bn courts-and-tribunals funding envelope.

In November 2024, a court case was listed for trial in 2028: a four-year wait.

Rape and sexual-offence cases

Open sexual-offence cases reached 16,089 in June 2026, compared with 10,141 in March 2024.

The adult-rape backlog rose from 1,851 open cases in March 2023 to 2,786 in March 2024.

Rape Crisis’s 2023 research found an average wait of 839 days from reporting a rape to the police to completion of the case in court.

Rape-reporting estimates published in 2023 found five in six women and four in five men who were raped did not report it to police.

Survivors interviewed for Rape Crisis’s Breaking Point research described severe mental-health harm during court delays, including attempted suicide.

The 2024 Criminal Bar Association survey found that 64% of responding prosecutors would not re-register for sexual-offence work and 66% of responding defence lawyers no longer wanted to undertake it. Six in ten respondents cited poor pay.

Police investigations and evidence

The 2023 Casey review found broken fridges and freezers in the Metropolitan Police’s forensic-evidence storage, jeopardising evidence in rape investigations.

A 2022 digital-forensics inspection found a backlog of more than 25,000 devices. Some victims waited up to 18 months for their phones to be returned.

Long waits put pressure on victims and witnesses to withdraw and make evidence harder to preserve. They also give defendants an incentive to contest cases as testimony weakens and witnesses become harder to retain.

Emergency courts that worked

During the pandemic, the first temporary Nightingale court opened within six weeks of the building first being examined. Setting up a permanent court usually takes 24 to 36 months.

The Additional Courts Protocol, used after the 2011 London riots, lets courts sit for longer hours with the judiciary’s agreement. In August 2024, ministers and senior judges held emergency talks on 24-hour courts after the summer disorder.

Consequences and accountability

A defendant with 44 previous offences received a 12-month community order after delays brought his case to court late. The judge said he would have sent the man to prison if the case had arrived in late 2017, when it should have been heard.

The National Audit Office found that the Criminal Justice Board Steering Committee did not meet between July 2021 and July 2023. Over those years, the Crown Court backlog grew from just over 60,000 to nearly 68,000 cases, while cases waiting at least a year rose from 11,350 to 18,045.

Capacity and overcrowding

On 14 September 2026, prisons in England and Wales held 87,111 people against a usable operational capacity of 88,986. Only 1,875 places were spare: 2.1% of capacity. Usable capacity was 678 places lower than a year earlier.

In June 2026, prisons in England and Wales held 10,134 foreign nationals, including sentenced prisoners, people awaiting trial or sentence, and non-criminal prisoners.

In 2023–24, 20,533 prisoners were held in crowded accommodation: 23.6% of the prison population.

Between 2010 and 2024, 14,142 prison places opened and 13,660 closed, leaving a net gain of only 482 places.

The Ministry of Justice’s 2024 forecast projected a March 2029 prison population of 100,800, with a range of 95,700–105,200.

Early release and electronic monitoring

In September 2026, 3,807 people were on Home Detention Curfew, living at home under electronic monitoring and conditions.

In 2024, the automatic exclusion from Home Detention Curfew for prisoners serving sentences of four years or more was removed.

The 2024 SDS40 scheme moved eligible prisoners’ release point from 50% to 40% of their sentence. The first two release groups contained 1,889 and 1,223 prisoners: 3,112 in total.

Spare prison places increased from 1,098 before the first SDS40 release group to 3,141 in late October 2024. By April 2025, they had fallen to 1,144.

Automatic-release changes that took effect on 1 October 2026 move eligible standard determinate sentences from release at 40% or halfway to one-third, or from two-thirds to halfway. The changes for existing prisoners are phased through June 2027. The scheme excludes specified offences including rape, certain child sexual offences, indecent assault and unlawful killing.

Amari Ward was reported to have been mistakenly released under SDS40 and to have sexually assaulted a woman on the day he was freed.

Liam Matthews killed a man on the day of his early release from prison.

Construction and delivery

The 2021 Prison Strategy promised 20,000 additional places by the mid-2020s: 18,000 permanent and 2,000 temporary. The earlier 2016–2019 programme aimed for 10,000 places but delivered 206.

Millsike opened in March 2025 with around 1,500 places. Fosse Way added another 250 places in December 2025.

The National Audit Office’s December 2024 assessment put completion of the 20,000-place programme in 2031, with estimated capital costs of £9.4bn–£10.1bn.

Remand and court delays

In June 2026, 15,386 people were held on remand, down 13% over the year. Of these, 10,242 were awaiting trial and 5,144 had been convicted but were awaiting sentence.

In the year to June 2024, 79% of defendants remanded in custody at the Crown Court received an immediate or suspended prison sentence. Faster court proceedings would shorten the time people spend waiting for a decision.

Costs

In 2024–25, average annual direct spending was £37,845 per prisoner. Including regional and national expenditure brought the overall annual average to £56,618.

In 2023–24, average annual direct costs were £35,165 per prisoner in public-sector prisons, £46,951 in privately financed PFI prisons and £27,078 in prisons run under manage-and-maintain contracts.

Planning and staffing

Harborough District Council rejected a 1,700-place prison next to HMP Gartree in 2022. The Secretary of State approved it in November 2023, after at least a year of planning delay.

Buckinghamshire’s 1,440-place prison secured permission almost two years after its rejection. Chorley’s 1,715-place prison was approved in December 2024, three years after the council initially rejected it.

Public-sector prisons employed 36,155 full-time-equivalent staff in June 2026, down 472, or 1.3%, over the year.

More than one in seven prison officers left in 2022. Among leavers, 47% had served for fewer than three years and 25% for fewer than one year.

Some overseas prison-officer recruits arrived without accommodation and slept in cars or outdoors.

Enforcement

Published breath-test totals fell from 647,380 in 2009 to 240,322 in 2023, a reduction of about 63%.

From 2024, the Home Office narrowed its breath-test figures to the 26 police forces with consistent data for both 2023 and 2024, so they can't be compared with the longer-term totals above. Those forces recorded 167,384 breath tests in 2023 and 167,095 in 2024. Of the 2024 tests, 24,823 were positive or refused (around 15%): the driver was either over the limit or refused to take the test.

Drink-driving convictions in England and Wales fell from 54,243 in 2012 to 40,292 in 2023.

The current law

Courts can impose lifetime driving bans. The 2025 sentencing guideline reserves them for cases with evidence of an enduring danger, including extensive previous convictions or relevant psychiatric evidence.

From June 2023 to June 2024, 202 people were found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. Only two of them received a lifetime driving ban.

The statutory minimum ban for relevant drink- or drug-driving offences is 12 months, rising to three years for qualifying repeat convictions within ten years. Causing death by careless driving while under the influence carries a five-year minimum, rising to six years for a qualifying repeat conviction.

Deaths and life-changing injuries

Mervyn Boreland drove at more than twice the speed limit and hit a 13-year-old girl, leaving her with life-changing injuries. He had a previous dangerous-driving conviction from 1997. He received three years in prison and a five-year driving ban.

Stuart Lithgow drove at twice the drink-driving limit and hit a motorcyclist, who died three days later. Lithgow received six years in prison and a six-year driving ban.

Firas Zeineddine drove at 90mph on the M4 during a storm and crashed into an HGV, which then struck another car, killing a mother and daughter. He received 12 months in prison and an 18-month ban for causing death by careless driving.

Drug driving and police chases

Charlotte Shipley drove under the influence of cannabis, pursued by police at up to 60mph with her baby in the front seat, and struck a taxi. She had been in court for drug driving five days earlier. She received ten months in prison and a driving ban of two years and five months.

Laine Hempsey drove under the influence of cannabis on the wrong side of the road and on pavements during a police chase. He crashed into another car and tried to run away. He received one year in prison and an 18-month driving ban.

Shane Oliver led police on a chase at up to 90mph while more than three times over the legal cannabis limit. He drove into oncoming traffic and crashed into a beer-garden wall, causing over £17,000 in damage. With eight previous convictions covering 11 offences, he received one year in prison and an 18-month driving ban.

Community sentences and repeat offending

David Smith drove at nearly three times the drink-driving limit and crashed a borrowed car while going to buy alcohol. He admitted drink-driving and driving without insurance or a licence, and received a 12-month community order and a driving ban of just 24 weeks. A community order is served in the community under court-imposed requirements.

Daniel Wilkins, already disqualified, used cloned number plates and drove on the wrong side of the road while fleeing police. He had 13 convictions covering 34 offences. He received a 16-month prison sentence suspended for two years, keeping him in the community subject to conditions, and a three-year driving ban.

Wahaab Ahsan had a previous drink-driving conviction when he was caught more than three times over the legal cannabis limit. He received a three-year driving ban.

The insufficient national inquiry

The statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs was formally established in April 2026, following final terms published in March. It has a £65m budget and up to three years to report, with its final report due by March 2029.

Section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 gives the inquiry powers to compel witnesses and require documents.

Three years is too long. Victims should expect swift justice, not an inquiry lost in endless extensions. Our proposed Bill would set additional duties, transparency requirements and a shorter deadline: 21 months, with 18 months to investigate and three months to write the report.

Institutional failures

Casey’s 2025 national audit found serious weaknesses in how authorities recorded and understood group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse.

The 2015 Rotherham inspection documented severe safeguarding and leadership failures.

The October 2025 police-inspection progress report found four recommendations overdue and 23 of 43 forces failing to receive relevant information from partner organisations.

Accountability

Operation Linden investigated police handling of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham and recorded disciplinary sanctions against officers.

Victims’ access to court records

Victims of rape or sexual offences, and people applying on their behalf, can request free Crown Court sentencing remarks: the judge’s explanation of the sentence.

The government announced that free sentencing remarks would be available to all Crown Court victims from spring 2027.

Full trial transcripts record the proceedings and are obtained through the court’s separate permission and fee process.