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Prison Recidivism 2011 and 2012 Cohorts

Additional Statistical Tables

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Recidivism rate highest for males aged under 21

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Table 3.1 includes a comparison of the rates of recidivism for different referral offences based on the offender’s initial offence. The percentage of individuals who re-offend is highest for those who are sentenced to custody for robbery and burglary offences with 72.3% (2012 cohort) and 68.9% (2011 cohort) of individuals who were convicted of robbery offences re-offending within three years. The corresponding figures for those convicted of burglary offences were 69.4% and 71.5% respectively.

Those sentenced for sexual offences and fraud offences were least likely to re-offend with rates of 18.9% for those convicted of a sexual offence and 21.7% convicted of a fraud offence in the 2012 cohort. The comparable figures for the 2011 cohort were 23.1% and 17.1%. However, the number of individuals who were imprisoned for sexual offences is small, so it is necessary to exercise caution when interpreting these rates.

Table 3.1 also provides an analysis of recidivism rates by gender and age. The rate of recidivism is highest in young males. Three quarters of all male offenders under the age of 21 commit an offence for which they are convicted within three years of their release from prison. The recidivism rate is lowest in females over the age of 40, with less than one quarter of the 2012 cohort going on to re-offend.

Table 3.1 Offender numbers classified by sex, age group, initial imprisonment offence and whether there was a reoffence within three years, 2011 and 2012 cohorts

Table 3.1 Offender numbers classified by sex, age group, initial imprisonment offence and whether there was a reoffence within three years, 2011 and 2012 cohorts
	2011				2012
	Reoffence within three years			Recidivismrate¹	Reoffence within three years			Recidivismrate¹
	Yes	No	Total	%	Yes	No	Total	%
Total offenders	4,906	5,129	10,035	48.9	4,896	5,786	10,682	45.8

Sex
Male	4,379	4,344	8,723	50.2	4,315	4,754	9,069	47.6
Female	527	785	1,312	40.2	581	1,032	1,613	36.0

All persons age group
<21 years	705	259	964	73.1	594	228	822	72.3
21-25	1,463	1,101	2,564	57.1	1,409	1,183	2,592	54.4
26-30	1,074	1,001	2,075	51.8	1,053	1,195	2,248	46.8
31-35	638	835	1,473	43.3	739	968	1,707	43.3
36-40	455	634	1,089	41.8	502	725	1,227	40.9
41-50	437	870	1,307	33.4	438	956	1,394	31.4
51+	134	429	563	23.8	161	531	692	23.3

Male age group
<21 years	664	218	882	75.3	553	192	745	74.2
21-25	1,301	905	2,206	59.0	1,248	925	2,173	57.4
26-30	949	821	1,770	53.6	909	950	1,859	48.9
31-35	560	713	1,273	44.0	633	797	1,430	44.3
36-40	395	543	938	42.1	433	612	1,045	41.4
41-50	392	753	1,145	34.2	397	807	1,204	33.0
51+	118	391	509	23.2	142	471	613	23.2

Female age group
<21 years	41	41	82	50.0	41	36	77	53.2
21-25	162	196	358	45.3	161	258	419	38.4
26-30	125	180	305	41.0	144	245	389	37.0
31-35	78	122	200	39.0	106	171	277	38.3
36-40	60	91	151	39.7	69	113	182	37.9
41-50	45	117	162	27.8	41	149	190	21.6
51+	16	38	54	29.6	19	60	79	24.1

Initial imprisonment offence
01 Homicide and related offences	10	20	30	33.3	11	20	31	35.5
02 Sexual offences	21	70	91	23.1	18	77	95	18.9
03 Attempts/Threats to Murder, assaults, harassments and related offences	319	260	579	55.1	298	240	538	55.4
04 Dangerous or negligent acts	332	544	876	37.9	313	561	874	35.8
05 Kidnapping and related offences	4	6	10	40.0	3	5	8	37.5
06 Robbery, extortion and hijacking offences	166	75	241	68.9	175	67	242	72.3
07 Burglary and related offences	263	105	368	71.5	274	121	395	69.4
08 Theft and related offences	505	219	724	69.8	509	317	826	61.6
09 Fraud, deception and related offences	41	199	240	17.1	55	198	253	21.7
10 Controlled drug offences	361	365	726	49.7	378	481	859	44.0
11 Weapons and explosives offences	116	81	197	58.9	125	69	194	64.4
12 Damage to property and to the environment	219	162	381	57.5	213	154	367	58.0
13 Public order and other social code offences	850	564	1,414	60.1	801	559	1,360	58.9
14 Road and traffic offences	956	1,686	2,642	36.2	991	1,979	2,970	33.4
15 Offences against Government, justice procedures and organisation of crime	212	130	342	62.0	148	108	256	57.8
16 Miscellaneous	531	643	1,174	45.2	584	830	1,414	41.3
¹ See background notes.

Open in Excel: P-PRIR2012TBL3.1 (XLS 14KB)

	Robbery, extortion and hijacking offences	Burglary and related offences	Theft and related offences	Fraud, deception and related offences	Controlled drug offences	Offences against Government, justice procedures and organisation of crime
Initial imprisonment offence	72.3	69.4	61.6	21.7	44	57.8

Age group	Male	Female
<21 years	74.2	53.2
21-25	57.4	38.4
26-30	48.9	37
31-35	44.3	38.3
36-40	41.4	37.9
41-50	33	21.6
51+	23.2	24.1

Table 3.2 contains data for the prison cohorts from 2008 to 2012. The data indicates that there has been a downward trend in the rate of recidivism over this five-year period, from an overall recidivism rate of 51% for the 2008 cohort of offenders to 45.8% for the 2012 cohort. The rate of recidivism is higher for males than for females, with the difference increasing over time. This male/female recidivism gap stood at 5.3 percentage points for the 2008 cohort, while for prisoners released in 2012, the gap had increased to 11.6 percentage points.

Table 3.2 Recidivism rate classified by sex, 2008 to 2012 cohorts

Age group	Male	Female
2008	51.5	46.2
2009	48.2	41.2
2010	46	37.8
2011	50.2	40.2
2012	47.6	36

Table 3.3 provides a breakdown of the offence committed by recidivists broken down by their referral offence for 2012. The table relates to the first offence committed by the recidivist after being released from prison. In many instances the numbers are very low. These instances are marked with an asterisk for data confidentiality purposes. The value of the asterisk is either one or zero.

Together, public order and theft offences account for over half (51.6%) of subsequent reoffences (for the 2012 cohort of offenders). The analysis indicates that, broadly speaking it is the same offence group which is the biggest single category for the first reoffence, however the majority of first reoffences are of a different type to the original offence.

In the case of those sentenced for theft offences, 202 (39.7%) individuals were subsequently convicted of another theft offence. Of those remaining, 113 (22%) were convicted of public order offences. Regarding public order offences, 48.9% (392) of individuals originally sentenced for these crimes received a subsequent conviction for the same offence type.

Table 3.3 Reoffender numbers classified by initial imprisonment offence and subsequent reoffence, 2012 cohort

Table 3.4 analyses the time period to the first re-offence for recidivists in the 2012 cohort. Two-thirds (66.8%) of offenders reoffended within 12 months of their release from prison, with 48.5% doing so within 6 months. This trend does not vary much according to gender. Younger offenders are more likely to reoffend sooner than older offenders. Of those aged under 21, 55.2% re-offend within 6 months. Of those aged 51 years or older, 44.7% reoffend within 6 months of their release.

Table 3.4 Offender numbers classified by sex, age group, initial imprisonment offence, whether there was a reoffence within three years and time period to first reoffence, 2012 cohort

Time to first reoffence	Offenders
< 6 months	2374
6<12 months	896
12<18 months	611
18<24 months	431
24<30 months	325
30<36 months	259

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Prison Recidivism 2011 and 2012 Cohorts

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Recidivism rate highest for males aged under 21

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Table 3.2 Recidivism rate classified by sex, 2008 to 2012 cohorts
%
	Recidivism rate¹
	All persons	Male	Female	Male/Female Difference
2008	51.0	51.5	46.2	5.3
2009	47.5	48.2	41.2	7.0
2010	45.1	46.0	37.8	8.2
2011	48.9	50.2	40.2	10.0
2012	45.8	47.6	36.0	11.6
¹ See background notes.

Table 3.3 Reoffender numbers classified by initial imprisonment offence and subsequent reoffence, 2012 cohort
	Subsequent reoffence¹
	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	15	16	Total
Total reoffenders	6	10	194	505	2	104	314	1,018	73	633	137	165	1,506	213	16	4,896

Initial imprisonment offence
01 Homicide offences	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	3	*	*	5	*	*	11
02 Sexual offences	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	3	*	*	2	*	8	*	*	18
03 Attempts/Threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences	*	*	25	15	*	11	18	52	4	29	5	14	115	8	*	298
04 Dangerous or negligent acts	*	*	23	73	*	4	15	46	*	36	8	10	85	13	*	313
05 Kidnapping and related offences	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	3
06 Robbery, extortion and hijacking offences	*	*	5	6	*	20	20	34	2	16	8	7	51	5	*	175
07 Burglary and related offences	*	*	5	11	*	10	48	71	4	29	9	9	66	10	*	274
08 Theft and related offences	*	2	12	20	*	11	41	202	8	43	16	18	113	22	*	509
09 Fraud, deception and related offences	*	*	2	9	*	*	4	10	6	5	*	3	13	2	*	55
10 Controlled drug offences	2	*	9	28	*	10	19	81	2	111	13	12	78	12	*	378
11 Weapons and explosives offences	*	*	3	8	*	4	8	23	*	14	8	8	38	8	*	125
12 Damage to property and to the environment	*	2	12	16	*	6	20	50	*	22	2	15	59	8	*	213
13 Public order and other social code offences	2	*	36	51	*	11	32	108	3	87	22	24	392	27	5	801
14 Road and traffic offences (NEC)	*	2	42	199	*	10	48	174	30	150	24	28	242	39	3	991
15 Offences against Government, justice procedures and organisation of crime	*	*	5	6	*	*	6	36	4	14	5	7	57	7	*	148
16 Offences not elsewhere classified	*	*	15	62	*	5	33	126	8	73	15	9	183	51	3	584
¹ Please see initial imprisonment offence column for description of offence type.
Note: Please be advised that * is used when the figure is zero or the figure cannot be published because of confidentiality reasons.

Table 3.4 Offender numbers classified by sex, age group, initial imprisonment offence, whether there was a reoffence within three years and time period to first reoffence, 2012 cohort
	Reoffence within 3 years
		Time period to first reoffence (months)
	Yes	< 6 ¹	6<12	12<18	18<24	24<30	30<36	No	Total
Total offenders	4,896	2,374	896	611	431	325	259	5,786	10,682

Sex
Male	4,315	2,105	793	533	382	274	228	4,754	9,069
Female	581	269	103	78	49	51	31	1,032	1,613

All persons age group
<21 years	594	328	115	61	40	29	21	228	822
21-25	1,409	694	253	168	115	103	76	1,183	2,592
26-30	1,053	501	191	139	95	75	52	1,195	2,248
31-35	739	355	134	92	67	43	48	968	1,707
36-40	502	228	100	65	49	32	28	725	1,227
41-50	438	196	76	63	50	29	24	956	1,394
51+	161	72	27	23	15	14	10	531	692

Male age group
<21 years	553	313	106	53	35	26	20	192	745
21-25	1,248	617	228	146	102	89	66	925	2,173
26-30	909	432	163	119	83	65	47	950	1,859
31-35	633	309	118	78	55	32	41	797	1,430
36-40	433	198	85	58	43	26	23	612	1,045
41-50	397	175	69	58	49	25	21	807	1,204
51+	142	61	24	21	15	11	10	471	613

Female age group
<25 years²	202	92	34	30	18	17	11	294	496
26-30	144	69	28	20	12	10	5	245	389
31-35	106	46	16	14	12	11	7	171	277
36-40	69	30	15	7	*	6	*	113	182
41+	60	32	10	7	*	7	*	209	269
¹ Includes those who re-offended before official release date.
² Please be advised that it was necessary to combine age groups for confidentiality purposes.
Note: Please be advised that * is used when the figure is zero or the figure cannot be published because of confidentiality reasons.