Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: December 2022
Trends in the use of out of court disposals, defendants prosecuted, offenders convicted, remand and sentencing decisions in England and Wales.
Applies to England and Wales
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This report presents key statistics on activity in the criminal justice system for England and Wales. It provides information up to the year ending September 2022 with accompanying commentary, analysis and presentation of longer-term trends.
Statistician’s comment:
The figures published today, for 2022, demonstrate the continued recovery of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) since the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and covers the period of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) action from April to October 2022, which may have impacted convictions at the Crown Court during the period. Prosecutions and convictions have increased in the latest year, however, they both remained below levels in 2019. The increase in the latest year was driven by summary offences, while prosecutions for indictable offences decreased. Prosecutions for theft increased for the first time since 2012 and sexual offences increased for the fourth consecutive year since 2018. Convictions for violence against the person decreased for the first time since 2020. The custody rate for indictable offences has risen to levels seen in 2020 at 34% in the latest year, after a fall in 2021. In the latest year, the average custodial sentence length (ACSL) for indictable offences has fallen slightly, although it has risen for most of the last 10 years.