Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders in each police force area who were convicted but not sentenced to an immediate custodial sentence in each year since 2007 had (a) 26 to 50, (b) 51 to 75, (c) 76 to 100 and (d) over 100 previous convictions or cautions.

The information requested is provided in the tables attached with this answer. These tables include data covering the period 2007 – 2023, on the number of offenders in each Police Force area with a specified number of previous convictions and cautions who were convicted but not sentenced to immediate custody for their latest offence in each of the given years. That is not to say that the offender has not received a sentence for immediate custody for any of the prior convictions.

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.