Police Cautions

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Ministerial Corrections

[Jenny Chapman]

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many cautions have been issued for offences of (a) murder, (b) rape, (c) sexual assault, (d) robbery and (e) burglary in (i) each year between 2010 and 2013 and (ii) each month since January 2013.

[Official Report, 9 July 2014, Vol. 584, c. 321-24W.]

Letter of correction from Damian Green:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) on 9 July 2014.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Damian Green]

The number of offenders (including young people) cautioned, for offences of rape, sexual assault, robbery and burglary, by months in England and Wales from 2010 to 2013 (latest available) can be viewed in the table. There were no cautions administered for murder.

Simple cautions (previously police cautions) are a non-statutory disposal available to the police to dispose of any offence committed by an adult and designed for dealing with low level, mainly first time offending. The Government does not believe that cautions are appropriate for serious offences. We issued new guidelines on 14 November 2014 following a detailed review of how cautions were being used by police forces, and are strengthening the law to prevent cautions being used for serious offences.

The Ministry of Justice issues guidance on the process to be followed by the police and the CPS when they are administering simple cautions for adult offenders. This guidance states that the use of a simple caution for indictable only offences, such as rape, should only be given following authorisation by the CPS. These will be cases where there were exceptional circumstances which would mean that it was not in the public interest to prosecute.

The overall number of simple cautions issued has halved since 2007. The cautioning rate, that is, the number of offenders cautioned as a percentage of offenders who were either cautioned or convicted, in 2013 was 20%; this has declined from a peak of 31% in 2007.

The Government is clear that serious offences should always be brought to court and to ensure that there is increased public confidence in the justice system last year announced limits on the use of simple cautions. These changes restrict the use of cautions for indictable only offences and certain serious either way offences unless there are exceptional circumstances and a senior police officer, as well as the CPS for certain cases, has agreed that a caution should be administered.

The MOJ guidance on Adult Simple Cautions was amended in November last year to reflect these changes, and we are currently legislating in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill to place statutory restrictions around their use.