Revealed: 99.5pc of criminals don't go to jail

Telegraph

15-03-2025

As few as one in 200 crimes results in an offender being sent to jail, analysis of official figures shows as career criminals escape justice.
An estimated 13 million crimes were committed in the year to September 2024, but just 71,573 jail sentences were handed down by judges or magistrates, equivalent to 0.5 per cent, according to the analysis.
Separate data show that more than half of the offences for which someone was convicted were committed by just under 10 per cent of convicts, prolific criminals responsible for multiple crimes.
The data, from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), show that the number of prolific offenders has increased over the past decade – and many are not being imprisoned.
Offenders with more than 50 convictions have been spared jail in more than 50,000 cases since 2007. The number of career criminals avoiding prison has nearly tripled, from 1,289 in 2007 to 3,325 in 2023, MoJ figures show
The analysis was compiled by campaign group Crush Crime, which has launched a petition calling for tougher sentences for prolific offenders as a proven way to reduce crime.
A rogue's gallery of cases, published on Saturday, shows the devastating human cost of 'soft justice' for career criminals.
Lawrence Newport, an academic who previously led a successful campaign to ban XL Bully dogs, founded Crush Crime. He said: 'The solutions are clear. The majority of crime is committed by just 10 per cent of offenders.
'At the moment, this cohort of career criminals is facing reduced sentences and avoiding prison at almost record-breaking levels. Imprisoning these career criminals for longer would protect the public and crush crime rates by up to 90 per cent.
'Opening the courts, ensuring victims no longer have to wait years for a trial, would increase conviction rates – and more criminals, knowing they faced an efficient trial, would plead guilty and stop wasting court time.
'For policing, we must put a stop to the endless red-tape, use the savings from doing so to retain and recruit more of the best talent into the police. Police and crime commissioners must also fire heads of services that are failing the public.'
Police recorded 5.4 million criminal offences – excluding fraud, computer misuse and summary motoring crime – in the year to September 2024.
However, the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), which charts people's actual experience of crime, suggests only 41 per cent of offences are reported to police.
This would suggest a total of just over 13 million crimes in that period. Of the 5.4 million recorded by police, 40.9 per cent of cases were closed without a suspect.
Just 7.1 per cent of the remaining cases resulted in a charge – and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) subsequently secured a conviction in 82.8 per cent of those cases.
That means roughly 315,342 crimes – or 2.4 per cent of the estimated 13 million total – resulted in a conviction. And among those, only 71,573 criminals received jail sentences.
'The picture is clear: of the 13 million crimes committed in a year, only a small proportion result in a suspect being charged, and an even smaller number lead to a conviction or prison sentence,' said Mr Newport.
'The vast majority either go unreported, remain unsolved or do not lead to significant consequences for offenders.'
The national figures mask significant regional variations, with the London's Metropolitan Police, Britain's biggest force, charging suspected offenders in fewer than one in 25 cases (4.28 per cent) compared with one in eight (12 per cent) in the highest-performing, Norfolk.
Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, said police should get back to the basics, and called on all forces to fulfil the pledge they made last year to pursue every line of inquiry on all crimes.
He said this meant running all images of suspects caught on CCTV, video doorbells and mobile phones through the police national database for facial recognition matches.
As police minister under Rishi Sunak, Mr Philp said, he set a target of doubling the number of images of suspects analysed this way from 100,000 to 200,000.
'Prolific offenders only belong in one place, which is prison, to prevent them from offending,' he said.
A Home Office spokesman said: 'For too long, communities across the country have seen neighbourhood policing hollowed out and crime going unpunished.
'That is why this Government's 'Safer Streets' mission vows to restore neighbourhood policing, restore public confidence in the criminal justice system, halve the rates of knife crime and violence against women and girls within a decade, and crack down on the crimes that people see every day in their local areas, from antisocial behaviour and fly-tipping to phone theft and shoplifting.
'Local forces have already received increased funding to start delivering the 13,000 extra neighbourhood officers we have pledged to put on the beat as part of the Government's Plan for Change.
'They will play a vital role in restoring visible policing, helping to ensure that all reported crimes are properly investigated and that more offenders face the justice they deserve.'