The latest quarterly Criminal Justice Statistics, which cover the period ending 30 June 2026, have recently been published.
Key findings are:
- 1.59 million individuals were formally dealt with by the Criminal Justice System – an increase of 1% on last year
- There was a 3% increase in prosecutions and a 4% increase in convictions for indictable offences.
- The overall average custodial sentence length increased to 20.5 months – there were increases across many offence groups, most notably an increase of 3.0 months for violence against the person.
- The number of prosecutions for the more serious indictable offences increased by 3%, including a 15% increase for sexual offences (up by 2,100), a 10% increase in public order offences (up by 2,200), and a 9% increase for theft offences (up by 6,600).
- Across the criminal courts, there were 86,700 offenders sentenced to immediate custody – an increase of 2% on the previous year and the highest level seen since year ending June 2018.
Increases in the length of time that people are sent to prison will inevitably contribute to the pressures on prison capacity, making it unlikely that the Government will be able to reduce or stop its early release schemes.
For further information, click here.