Reoffending following custodial sentences or community orders: by offence seriousness and offender characteristics, 2000 to 2018
Analysis on the link between reoffending risk and custodial sentence length and community orders following completion of a custodial sentence or community order.
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The aim of this research was to examine the link between both custodial sentence length and community orders with reoffending risk while controlling for offender characteristics (such as age), criminal circumstances (such as offence), and sentence length, by age group and seriousness of offence (if listed on Schedule 15 of the Criminal Justice Act or not).
This was to inform policy making decisions for the Criminal Records Reform proposed in the Sentencing White Paper ‘A Smarter Approach to Sentencing’, specifically concerned with the length of time before certain convictions become ‘spent’, i.e., the offender is treated as rehabilitated in respect of that offence and is not obliged to disclose it for most purposes. Reducing the time before a conviction becomes ‘spent’ for certain offences or custodial sentence lengths, and therefore will not appear on basic disclosure checks, may increase employment opportunities for ex-offenders.
This research study analysed data from the Police National Computer (PNC) on custodial sentences and community orders received by a cohort of offenders who entered the criminal justice system in the year 2000. The analysis assessed how many years it took for the reoffending risk following a custodial sentence or community order to reach the same level as the criminal risk of the general population (‘time to desistance’), for those who had committed offences listed on Schedule 15 or not.