Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of offenders sentenced to immediate custody had (a) zero, (b) between one and four, (c) between five and nine, (d) between 10 and 15, (e) between 16 and 25, (f) between 26 and 50 and (g) more than 50 previous (i) community orders and (ii) suspended sentences in each year since 2007.

The information requested is provided in the table attached with this answer. The table includes data covering the period 2007 – 2023, on:

• The number of offenders with a specified number of previous community sentences who were sentenced to immediate custody.
• The proportion of offenders with a specified number of previous community sentences who were sentenced to immediate custody.
• The number of offenders with a specified number of suspended sentences who were sentenced to immediate custody.
• The proportion of offenders with a specified number of suspended sentences who were sentenced to immediate custody.

It is worth noting that an offender may have had previous custodial sentences as well as previous community or suspended sentences. This data is not regularly published or held in an easily accessible format. The information supplied has been sourced from a complicated retrieval from the Police National Computer database.

It should be noted that sentencing decisions in individual cases are for the independent judiciary.