Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people sentenced to an immediate custodial sentence for the first time for (a) possession of a blade or point, (b) possession of an offensive weapon, (c) common assault, (d) assaulting a police officer, (e) sexual assault, (f) a public order offence, (g) theft, (h) robbery, (i) burglary, (j) a drug-related offence, (k) criminal damage, (l) breach of an anti-social behaviour order, (m) fraud and (n) vehicle taking in each year since 2007 had (i) no, (ii) between one and four, (iii) between five and nine, (iv) between 10 and 15, (v) between 16 and 25, (vi) between 26 and 50, (vii) between 51 and 75, (viii) between 76 and 100 and (ix) 101 or more convictions and cautions for previous offences of any type.

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 people sentenced to an immediate custodial sentence for the first time for a specified offence and an indication (by band) of their previous cautions and convictions for previous offences of any type. That is to say, in this data set, the offender received their first sentence of immediate custody for that particular offence. Nothing in this data set indicates that the offender has not received a sentence of immediate custody before, for another offence.

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.