Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 25 November 2014 to Question 214936, how many such cautions were issued in each police force area.
Further to my answer to Question 214936 of 25 November 2014, information those offenders cautioned for sexual activity with a child under 13 in England and Wales from 2009 to 2013 by police force area can be viewed in the table below.
This data can also be sourced, via the creation of pivot tables, from information which is in the public domain as part of the Criminal Justice Statistics annual publication, in the table “Cautions by police force area”. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-statistics-quarterly-december-2013
Police Force areas are covered in column A and offences (sexual activity with a child under 13 is offence number 21) is in column J. When manipulating these data, please bear in mind the footnotes in the table apply here too.
All sexual offences are abhorrent and the Government is clear that serious criminals should always face the courts, where judges have tough sentencing measures available to them. We have changed the rules to stop cautions being given for serious offences and have unveiled plans to scrap their use completely. This proposed new system will see cautions replaced with a system of tougher sanctions designed to make sure offenders face direct consequences for carrying out even minor crimes. People have to be able to have confidence in our justice system and serious offenders should not be getting cautions. Under this Government, more sex offenders are going to jail and for longer.