Re-offending statistics quarterly
Source: data.gov.uk (2014-05-10)

A quarterly release presenting statistics on re-offending at national and local level in England and Wales.
Source agency: Justice
Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics
Language: English
Alternative title: Re-offending statistics quarterly

2013 Compendium of  
re-offending statistics and 
analysis 
 
 
 
Ministry of Justice 
Statistics bulletin  
 
 
Published 11 July 2013 

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Contents  
 
 
 
 
 
      Page 
Overview 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                        3 
 
Paper 1 
Impact of sentencing on proven re-offending  
for adult offenders in England and Wales, 2009-2010     4 
 
Annex A: Statistical Tables  
 
 
 
28 
 
Annex B: Variable used in the matching  
 
30 
Paper 2 
End of sentence re-offending 
 
 
 
31 
 
Appendix A  Glossary of terms 
 
 
 
 
 
36 
 
 
 2

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Overview 
The Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis is an annual 
publication created to address a selection of re-offending questions not 
answered in existing statistical publications. It is designed to answer 
questions of interest to policy-makers and delivery staff and aid in 
development of policy and delivery of services to reduce re-offending.  
The 2013 Compendium consists of two papers covering: 
 impact of sentencing on proven re-offending for adult offenders 
in England and Wales, 2009-2010;  
 end of sentence re-offending.  
There is also an Appendix which contains a glossary of key re-
offending terms which have been used throughout this Compendium. 
 
 3

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Paper 1: Impact of sentencing on proven re-offending for 
adult offenders in England and Wales, 2009-2010 
Summary 
This paper compares the impact of a range of adult sentences on re-
offending. The Ministry of Justice publishes quarterly re-offending 
figures broken down by sentence type but these should not be used to 
judge the relative effectiveness of different sentences. This is because 
the offenders that make up each sentencing group have different 
offender and offence characteristics to one another and it may be these 
factors that account for the difference in re-offending for each sentence 
group rather than the sentences themselves. 
To deal with this issue, Propensity Score Matching was used to create 
matched offender groups for each pair of sentences being compared. 
Through matching, the different offender and offence characteristics 
are controlled for and a more informed judgement can be made 
regarding the relative effectiveness of each sentence. 
The analysis updates the findings presented in the 2011 Compendium 
by; using more recent 2009 and 2010 re-offending data, employing an 
improved matching methodology and including several new 
comparisons. 
The key findings, using the one year proven re-offending rate as the 
main outcome measure, are outlined below.  
Comparisons of immediate custodial sentences 
Offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in custody had a higher 
one year re-offending rate than similar, matched offenders receiving:  
 a community order, of 6.4 percentage points for 2010; 
 a suspended sentence order, of 8.6 percentage points for 2010; 
 a ‘court order’ (either a community order or a suspended order), 
of 6.8 percentage points for 2010. 
Offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in custody also had a 
higher re-offending rate than offenders given an immediate custodial 
sentence of between 1 and 4 years. The difference was 12 percentage 
points for 2010. Offenders released from custodial sentences of less 
than 12 months are not currently subject to supervision by the 
Probation service upon release; this may at least partially explain the 
above differences. Current government proposals in the Offender 
Rehabilitation Bill will extend supervision to all offenders released from 
custody. 
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
When short term custodial sentences were broken down, offenders 
sentenced to less than or equal to 6 months in custody re-offended at a 
higher rate than matched offenders sentenced to more than 6 and less 
than 12 months. The difference for 2010 was 4.8 percentage points. 
This suggests that a longer custodial sentence length may have more 
of an effect on re-offending than a shorter one for offenders who could 
have received either less than or equal to 6 months in custody or to 
more than 6 and less than 12 months.  
Comparisons of court sentences other than immediate custody 
Offenders receiving a suspended sentence order had a lower one year 
re-offending rate than similar, matched offenders receiving a 
community order. The difference was 3.2 percentage points for 2010. 
Offenders receiving a community order had a slightly higher one year 
re-offending rate than similar matched offenders receiving a fine, the 
difference being 0.9 percentage points for 2010. Fines in these 
comparisons only refer to police recorded fines, which are those given 
for more serious offences (such as being drunk and disorderly) rather 
than less serious ones (such as TV license evasion and speeding).  
Offenders receiving a conditional discharge had a lower re-offending 
rate than similar, matched offenders receiving: 
 A community order, of 5.1 percentage points for 2010; 
 
 
A fine, of 5.5 percentage points for 2010. 
The difference between conditional discharges and fines grew month 
by month over the re-offending follow-up period, with a smaller 
difference earlier on. This may be due to the nature of each sentence, 
with fines being imposed immediately compared to conditional 
discharges which are given for a period of time set by the court.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Introduction 
 
The Ministry of Justice publishes National Statistics on proven re-
offending in England and Wales for both juvenile and adult offenders 
on a quarterly basis1. This publication provides measures of re-
offending broken down by the type of sentence. However, it is not 
recommended to compare the impact of different sentences on re-
offending rates using these breakdowns alone. This is because the re-
offending rates for each sentence are based on offenders with different 
characteristics, such as age, gender, length of criminal career and 
number of previous offences. Without adjusting for these 
characteristics, any differences in re-offending between sentences 
cannot confidently be attributed to the sentences themselves as they 
may be the result of the unadjusted characteristics.  
In the 2011 Compendium, a paper was included to provide adjusted 
comparisons between various sentences that a criminal court might 
give. Matched adult offender groups were constructed for each set of 
sentences being compared. Offenders who received one sentence (for 
example a fine) were matched to offenders receiving the comparison 
sentence (say a community order) if they were identical in terms of age, 
gender, ethnicity, number of previous criminal convictions and latest 
offence type2. This enabled re-offending outcome measures to more 
reliably be compared between different sentences, and a more 
informed judgement to be made on each sentence’s relative 
effectiveness. The 2011 Compendium compared a range of sentences 
for adult offenders sentenced between 2005 and 2008.  
The current paper aims to build on the analysis presented in the 2011 
Compendium in two ways; firstly by updating the figures using more 
recent 2009 and 2010 re-offending data and a more robust matching 
methodology and secondly by adding several new comparisons. 
In this paper, the following comparisons that were present in the 2011 
Compendium are updated using 2009 and 2010 data: 
 immediate custody (less than 12 months) compared with 
community orders; 
 
 immediate custody (less than 12 months) compared with 
suspended sentence orders; 
 
 community orders compared with suspended sentence orders; 
 
 community orders compared with conditional discharges; 
                                                          
1 See Proven Re-Offending Quarterly Bulletin, Ministry of Justice, April 2013. 
2 See Chapter 1 of the 2011 Compendium of Re-offending Statistics and Analysis, Ministry of 
Justice, May 2011. 
 6

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
 
 community orders compared with police recorded fines; and, 
 
 police recorded fines compared with conditional discharges. 
 
The new comparisons included for the 2013 Compendium are: 
 court orders (which incorporates community orders and 
suspended sentence orders) compared with immediate custody 
(less than 12 months). This comparison was added to meet 
demand amongst users for a comparison featuring both forms of 
court order combined. 
 
 immediate custody (1 to 4 years) compared with immediate 
custody (less than 12 months). This replaces the comparison 
between immediate custody (less than 12 months) and 
immediate custody (1 to 2 years) to bring the current 
Compendium in line with the custodial sentence length 
breakdowns published in Table 19a of the Proven Re-Offending 
Quarterly Bulletin.  
 
 immediate custody (less than or equal to 6 months) compared 
with immediate custody (more than 6 to less than 12 months). 
This comparison was added to improve understanding of short 
term sentences as the majority of sentences less than 12 
months are actually for less than or equal to 6 months3. Also, 
because offenders sentenced to less than 12 months are not 
currently supervised by Probation upon release, splitting up this 
sentence length into two allows us to be more confident that any 
difference in re-offending rate reflects the sentence length rather 
than differences in post-release supervision. 
 
The selected comparisons cover a range of realistic options a judge 
may consider when sentencing an offender at court. Each individual 
comparison aims to compare two sentences which could possibly be 
given for the same offence. It would not make sense, for example, to 
compare conditional discharges with custodial sentences of more than 
a year because these sentences relate to different levels of offence 
severity. 
 
Methodology   
Comparing measures of proven re-offending 
It is not possible to assess the impact of a sentence on re-offending by 
looking at the re-offending rate for that sentence in isolation. Neither is 
                                                          
3 See Table 2.1a in the Prison Reception table presented in the latest Offender Management 
Statistics, Ministry of Justice, April 2013.  
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
it advisable to compare the unadjusted re-offending rate for one 
sentence with that of another. This is because the composition of 
offenders that make up one sentence group will likely be different to 
those in the other. This difference in composition means that when 
comparing unadjusted re-offending rates between two sentences, it is 
unclear whether any difference in the rates is due to the difference in 
sentence or differences in other characteristics between the groups. 
Therefore in order to make a judgement on the relative impact of two 
sentences on re-offending, it is important to control for differences in 
offender characteristics between the two sentencing groups. The aim is 
to make the two groups as similar as possible so that the only 
systematic difference between the groups is that one received one type 
of sentence and the other another type of sentence. By minimising the 
other differences between the groups, the sentences become more 
comparable. 
From a statistical perspective, arguably the most robust method of 
comparing the impact of two sentence types on re-offending would be a 
Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT). This would involve randomly 
assigning offenders to each of the two sentences. RCTs are ideal as 
they allow for control over both observable and unobservable offender 
characteristics and also any underlying systematic differences in 
sentencing and offender management. However, an RCT design is 
inappropriate for comparing sentences for ethical reasons; it would be 
unethical to randomly assign offenders different sentences in a court of 
law.  
To compare two sentences, therefore, the most appropriate method 
available is to create matched offender groups for each sentencing 
comparison, based on available information about the offenders.  This 
quasi-experimental approach is not considered as robust as an RCT 
because it can only use available offender and offence data.  
In this paper, Propensity Score Matching (PSM) was used as the 
method of creating matched offender groups for each sentencing 
comparison.  
Propensity score matching  
Propensity score matching constructs statistical comparison groups of 
offenders based on the probability of receiving one of the sentences in 
each comparison, using observed offender and offence characteristics. 
The probability is represented as a ‘propensity score’ which is a value 
between 0 and 1. Offenders given one type of sentence (the ‘treatment’ 
sentence) are matched to offenders receiving the other sentence type 
(the ‘control’ sentence) where the propensity scores of each offender 
are similar. After matching, the average treatment effect of receiving 
one sentence rather than the other is calculated as the difference in the 
mean re-offending rates between the two sentences. 
 8

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Datasets featuring adult4 offenders in England and Wales between 
2009 and 2010 were therefore constructed for each sentence category 
to be compared using information taken from the Police National 
Computer (PNC)5. The datasets contained offender, offence, criminal 
history and re-offending information for each occasion when an adult 
offender received one of the selected court sentences.  
Offenders were included in each sentence dataset for as many times 
as they had received the relevant sentence during the time period. So 
an offender who received two community orders on separate 
sentencing occasions during the period, for example, would have two 
records eligible for matching when comparing community orders to 
another sentence.  
Under PSM, the propensity score of an offender receiving the 
sentencing outcome deemed the ‘treatment’ sentence was derived 
from a logistic regression model6 using a wide range of offender and 
offence characteristics likely to be associated with receiving the 
sentence. Such characteristics include age, gender, offence type, 
offence severity and number of previous offences; a full list can be 
found in Annex B. Variables that had statistically significant 
relationships at the 0.2 significance level with either the probability of 
receiving ‘treatment’ sentence or with re-offending were included in the 
model7.  
Once propensity scores were calculated, offenders in each sentencing 
group were matched to one another using one to one Nearest-
Neighbour matching. Under this method, each offender receiving the 
‘treatment’ sentence was matched to the offender with the closest 
propensity score receiving the ‘comparison’ sentence, provided the 
nearest match was within a specified distance8. In this analysis, the 
matching was done with replacement. This means the same offender in 
the ‘comparison’ group can be used as a match for different offenders 
receiving the ‘treatment’ sentence, so long as they represent the 
closest match. In cases where no suitable match was found for 
offenders in the ‘treatment’ sentencing group, offenders were excluded 
                                                          
4 Adult offenders are defined as offenders aged 18 or over at the time of their sentence, or in 
the case of custodial sentences, at the time of their discharge from prison. This is also referred 
to as the start point or the index date. 
5 The Police National Computer is the administrative data system used by all police forces in 
England and Wales. It is managed by the Home Office. The Ministry of Justice receive monthly 
extracts of data from the PNC.  
6 Logistic regression is a type of regression analysis used for predicting the outcome of a binary 
variable based on one or more explanatory variables (or covariates).   
7 The 0.2 level of statistical significance is consistent with guidance from the academic 
literature (e.g. Apel & Sweeten, 2010; Hahs-Vaughn & Onwuegbuzie, 2006; Rosenbaum, 2002) 
and with previous Ministry of Justice research such as the 2012 Compendium analysis 
comparing sentences for juvenile offenders (Ministry of Justice, 2012).   
8 The specified distance (known as a ‘caliper’) was 0.05 standard deviations of the propensity 
score. The probabilities of receiving a particular sentence outcome therefore did not have to be 
exactly the same, but needed to be within 0.05 standard deviations of the propensity score.  
 9

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
from the comparison. However, as the tables in Annex A show very few 
‘treatment’ sentence offenders were dropped from the comparisons. 
To illustrate the matching process consider a comparison of fines 
against community orders with offender A, having received a fine, and 
offender B who received a community order. Their respective 
propensity scores of receiving a community order are similar, say 0.31 
for both offenders, meaning they are a potential match. Given that the 
propensity score is a function of offender and offence characteristics 
related either to receiving one of the two sentences or re-offending, it is 
likely that the underlying characteristics of offenders A and B are 
similar. They are therefore deemed an acceptable match and their re-
offending outcomes can be compared.       
Differences in methodology from the 2011 compendium 
In the sentencing analysis presented in the 2011 Compendium, PSM 
was used as a secondary matching method to ‘contextualise some of 
the results’. The primary matching method there was variable by 
variable matching, where matched comparison groups were 
constructed by matching offenders exactly on a few characteristics, 
namely age, gender, ethnicity, index offence and the number of 
previous offences. 
The present analysis uses PSM as its primary and only matching 
methodology. PSM is advantageous in that it allows more matches to 
be made than in variable by variable matching and allows the inclusion 
of more variables in the matching process. PSM was also used as the 
primary matching methodology in the sentencing analysis presented in 
the 2012 Compendium which compared the impact of difference 
sentences on re-offending for juvenile offenders9.     
Due to changes in the methodology, the results presented in the 2011 
Compendium for 2005-2008 should not be directly compared to the 
results presented here for 2009 and 2010 in terms of a time series. The 
purpose of this analysis is not to chart differences in re-offending 
between sentences over time but rather to update the figures using the 
latest re-offending data.  
Re-offending outcome measures 
In order to compare the impact of different sentences on re-offending, 
three re-offending outcome measures were calculated10. As in the 
sentencing analysis published in the 2011 Compendium, these were: 
1.  The one year proven re-offending rate – defined as the proportion 
of offenders who committed an offence in a one year follow-up period 
                                                          
9 See Paper 1 of the 2012 Compendium of Re-offending Statistics and Analysis, Ministry of 
Justice, July 2012. 
10 The measures were calculated in line with the Ministry of Justice’s National Statistics on re-
offending in England and Wales. See Definitions and Measurement for more information. 
 10

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
which received a court conviction, caution, reprimand or warning during 
the period, with a further six month waiting period to allow the offence 
to proceed through court. The one year follow-up period begins at the 
time of sentence except in the case of custodial sentences where it 
begins at the time of discharge from prison.   
2.  The proven re-offending frequency rate – the mean number of 
proven re-offences in the follow-up period per offender in the sentence 
group.  
3.  The proven re-offending custody rate – the proportion of re-
offenders whose re-offence resulted in an immediate custodial 
sentence. 
Methodological Limitations 
The PSM approach has the advantage of using all relevant observed 
offence and offender characteristics available in the dataset to match 
the two groups and due to the statistical model, most offenders with a 
particular sentencing outcome are likely to have a corresponding 
matched offender in another sentencing outcome. As with any 
matching approach, this methodology relies heavily on the model 
specification and robustness, and in particular on having a complete 
set of factors in the propensity score model. Essentially, it needs to 
include all factors which influence both the likelihood of proven re-
offending and the type of sentence received11. 
However, this analysis is limited to the offender and offence 
characteristics available on the PNC and cannot draw upon other 
characteristics that may have influenced the sentencing decision or the 
probability of re-offending, such as the offender’s plea. It is therefore 
possible that some of the differences in the re-offending rates found in 
this analysis reflect differences in the offenders and their offences that 
could not be covered by the data used. This may be more of an issue 
for certain comparisons than others, for example magistrates/judges 
may take into consideration an offender’s income when deciding 
whether to give a fine, though income data was not in the dataset. 
In general, some extra caution is advised when interpreting 
comparisons featuring fines. The PNC does not record all offences for 
which fines may be given in a court such as TV license evasion or less 
serious motoring offences. Rather it only covers fines for more serious 
offences, such as shoplifting, driving over the limit, being drunk and 
disorderly and possession of cannabis. This means the findings should 
not be considered in terms of all fines, but rather the more serious 
offences that might lead to a fine. 
                                                          
11 More technically, the Conditional Independence Assumption needs to be satisfied. For a 
fuller account of this see Bryson, Dorsett and Purdon (2002).   
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
In addition, the matching of offenders for most comparisons was 
conducted on the basis of selecting the ‘treatment’ group as the 
sentence with the smallest number of offenders and the ‘comparison’ 
group as the sentence with the largest number12. The tables in Annex 
A show which sentence was the ‘treatment’ sentence in each
comparison.  
 
                                                          
Selecting the treatment group in this way limits the interpretation of the 
results to comparisons of the re-offending rates in one direction only. 
For example, when comparing community orders with fines the 
analysis shows what would have happened to those receiving a 
community order if they had received a fine, not the other way around. 
This means that the analysis for this comparison would be more 
focused on particular offences that might receive a community order or 
a fine, rather than less serious offences warranting only a fine and not 
a community order.   
Assessing the matching quality 
The robustness of the calculated treatment effect depends on the 
quality of the match achieved by the PSM. Following the matching for 
each comparison, the closeness of the matched groups on 
characteristics selected by the model as being predictive of sentence 
outcome and re-offending was tested using standardised (mean) 
differences13.  
Standardised differences of 5% or less indicate that the groups were 
closely matched on that particular offender or offence characteristic. As 
an example, the post-matching mean age at first offence could be 16.2 
for community orders and 16.1 for suspended sentence orders, with a 
standardised difference between the two of 0.6%. This would indicate 
that the matched community order and suspended sentence order 
groups are well matched on age at first offence. Standardised 
differences between 5% and 10% indicate a reasonable match quality 
and differences above 10% indicate a poor quality of matching which 
could alter the interpretation of the final result.  
In this analysis, the vast majority of standardised differences were less 
than 5%. None were greater than 10%. This suggests the propensity 
score matching succeeded in creating well matched groups of 
 
12 The exception to this was the Immediate Custody (less than 12 months) compared with 
Immediate Custody (1 to 4 years). 
13 The formula for the standardised (mean) difference is as follows, where the x represents the 
characteristic selected and s the standard deviation of that characteristic: 


2
 
difference
 
ed
Standardis
2
2
s
s
x
x
control
treatment
control
treatment



 
 
 
 12

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
offenders. The accompanying tables to this publication feature 
information on the standardised differences for each comparison. 
Sensitivity Analysis 
As noted above, it is possible that some factors which might influence 
both re-offending and sentencing decisions were not covered in the 
analysis due to limitations with the data available. As in the 2011 
Compendium, sensitivity analysis was performed to test the potential 
sensitivity of the results to these unobserved characteristics. 
A randomly generated factor linearly correlated with re-offending was 
included in the Propensity Score Matching. The level of correlation with 
re-offending was set to be higher than that of any variable available for 
analysis in the dataset.  The factor was included to emulate the 
potential impact of the unobserved characteristics.  
Sensitivity analysis was performed for the two new comparisons 
included for the present compendium, having previously been 
performed for other comparisons in the 2010 Compendium. The results 
for these are included in the appropriate results section for each 
comparison.  
The main findings for all sentencing comparisons for the matched 
offender groups using 2009 and 2010 data are presented in Tables 
A1.1 and A1.2 in Annex A. These tables show that for every 
comparison at least 98% of the treatment sentence group were 
matched. Further demographic breakdowns of the data can be found in 
the tables accompanying this paper as can details of the coefficients 
from the logistic regression for each comparison. Detailed results and 
commentary for the comparisons are presented below. All differences 
in the main outcome measures were statistically significant unless 
otherwise stated. 
Immediate custody (less than 12 months) compared with 
community orders 
Offenders discharged from immediate custodial sentences of less than 
12 months re-offended at a higher rate than matched offenders 
receiving a community order. They also committed more re-offences 
per offender and a greater number of re-offenders committed a re-
offence that resulted in an immediate custodial sentence. The 
differences for these three outcome measures were similar for 2009 
and 2010. 
 13

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Table 1.1: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 months 
compared with matched offenders receiving a community order, 
for 2010. 
  
Immediate 
Custody 
(less than 12 
months)
Community 
Orders
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
62.5%
56.2%
6.4 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
3.39
2.44
0.95
Proven re-offending custody rate
44.4%
33.3%
11.1 pp  
Offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months 
are not currently given supervision by Probation upon release and this 
may at least partially explain the above difference.  
The one-year follow-up period for measuring re-offending begins for all 
custodial sentences at the date of custodial release, whereas for 
community orders it begins at commencement of the order. Additional 
analysis showed the difference in re-offending rate between the two 
sentences became apparent early into the follow-up. For 2010, almost 
a third of matched offenders released from custody (31.4%) had re-
offended within two months of their release. In comparison, less than a 
quarter (23.3%) of matched offenders receiving a community order had 
re-offended within two months of their order starting; a difference of 8 
percentage points.  
 14

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Figure 1.1: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
released from immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 
months compared with matched offenders receiving a community 
order, over the one year re-offending follow-up period, for 
2010.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into one year follow-up period
Community Orders
Immediate custody (less than 12 months)
When checking the quality of the match, the standardised differences 
between the two groups were all less than 5% for both 2009 and 2010, 
suggesting that the groups were well matched on all relevant observed 
characteristics in the datasets.  
Immediate custody (less than 12 months) compared with 
suspended sentence orders 
Offenders discharged from immediate custodial sentences of less than 
12 months re-offended at a higher rate than matched offenders 
receiving a suspended sentence order and committed more re-offences 
per offender. However, offenders receiving a suspended sentence 
order were more likely to commit a re-offence resulting in immediate 
custody. This is likely to be explained by the nature of suspended 
sentence orders; offenders are sent to custody if they do not meet the 
requirement of the order or if they re-offend14. 
The results for this comparison were similar for 2009 and 2010 on all 
three outcome measures. 
 
                                                          
14 See the Sentencing Council guidelines on Suspended Sentence Orders.  
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Table 1.2: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving immediate custodial sentences less than 12 months 
compared with matched offenders receiving a suspended 
sentence order, for 2010.  
Immediate 
Custody 
(less than 12 
months)
Suspended 
Sentence 
Orders
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
62.5%
53.9%
8.6 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
3.37
2.23
1.14
Proven re-offending custody rate
44.4%
55.5%
-11.1 pp  
Like community orders, the one year re-offending follow-up period for 
suspended sentence orders begins when an offender commences an 
order. As in the comparison between community orders and short 
custodial sentences, the difference in re-offending rate between 
suspended sentence orders and immediate custodial sentences of less 
than 12 months was apparent early into the follow-up period. For 
example, the difference in percentage points between the re-offending 
rates was 9.6 at two months into the 2010 follow-up period.  
Figure 1.2: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
released from immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 
months compared with matched offenders receiving a suspended 
sentence order, over the one year re-offending follow-up period, 
for 2010. 
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into follow-up period
Suspended Sentence Orders
Immediate Custody (less than 12 months)
 
 16

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
 
When checking the quality of the match, all bar one standardised 
difference across 2009 and 2010 were less than 5%, suggesting the 
groups were well matched. The standardised difference in mean 
previous court orders for the 2010 comparison was only just above 5% 
(5.1%) and still indicates a reasonable quality of matching.  
Immediate custody (less than 12 months) compared with court 
orders 
Community orders and suspended sentence orders were combined to 
look at ‘court orders’ as a whole. For both 2009 and 2010, offenders 
discharged from immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 months 
had a higher re-offending rate and committed more re-offences per 
offender than matched offenders who were given a court order.  
Unsurprisingly the percentage point difference in the re-offending rate 
for court orders compared with short custodial sentences is closer to 
that found in the comparison between short custodial sentences and 
community orders, as opposed to the comparison between short 
custodial sentences and suspended sentence orders, because a 
greater proportion of court orders are community orders. 
The re-offending custody rate has not been provided for this 
comparison. This is because return to custody following a re-offence is 
the key difference between community orders and suspended sentence 
orders and so should be considered separately for each sentence in 
relation to custodial sentences less than 12 months.  
Table 1.3: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving immediate custodial sentences less than 12 months 
compared with matched offenders receiving a court order, for 
2010. 
Immediate 
Custody 
(less than 12 
months)
Court Orders
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
62.6%
55.7%
6.8 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
3.39
2.45
0.94  
The difference in re-offending between court orders and custodial 
sentences less than 12 months was apparent early into the follow-up 
period. At two months in, for example, 31.4% of offenders released 
from short custodial sentences had re-offended, compared with less 
than a quarter (23.7%) of those serving a court order, a difference of 
7.7 percentage points. The difference was similar throughout the 
remainder of the follow-up period.  
 
 
 17

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Figure 1.3: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
released from immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 
months compared with matched offenders receiving a court order, 
over the one year re-offending follow-up period, for 2010. 
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into follow-up period
Immediate Custody (less than 12 months)
Court Orders
 
When checking the quality of the match, the standardised differences 
between the two groups were all less than 5% for both 2009 and 2010, 
suggesting that the groups were well matched on all relevant observed 
characteristics in the datasets.  
Immediate custody (less than 12 months) compared with 
immediate custody (1 to 4 years) 
Offenders discharged from immediate custodial sentences of less than 
12 months had a higher re-offending rate than matched offenders who 
were sentenced to between 1 and 4 years in custody. They also 
committed more re-offences per offender. This was the same for both 
2009 and 2010.  
However, re-offenders sentenced to less than 12 months in 2010 were 
less likely to return to custody for their re-offence than re-offenders in 
the 1 to 4 year group. The difference in re-offending custody rate for 
2009 was small and non-significant.  
 
 
 
 
 18

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Table 1.4: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving immediate custodial sentences less than 12 months 
compared with matched offenders receiving immediate custodial 
sentences of between 1 and 4 years, for 2010.  
 
Immediate 
Custody 
(less than 12 
months)
Immediate 
Custody (1 to 
4 years)
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
62.5%
50.5%
12.0 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
3.39
2.02
1.37
Proven re-offending custody rate
44.4%
47.8%
-3.4 pp  
It is not conclusive as to whether the differences in re-offending rate 
and frequency of re-offending for this comparison are due to the longer 
sentence length in itself. For 2009 and 2010, offenders released from 
immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 months were not 
supervised by Probation upon release; neither do offenders in this 
category necessarily have enough time to complete interventions in 
prison. Offenders are supervised upon release if their sentences are 
greater than 12 months and are more likely to have within prison 
interventions. It may be these differences that at least partially explain 
the differences in re-offending outcomes for this comparison. 
Nevertheless, the difference in re-offending rate between the two 
sentences was apparent within a month of custodial release. For 2010, 
over a fifth (21.0%) of matched offenders released from custodial 
sentences of less than 12 months had re-offended within 30 days of 
release, compared to 11.5% of offenders sentenced to between 1 and 
4 years; a difference of 9.5 percentage points. 
This difference grew in the next few months; after six months, the 
difference in re-offending rate was 16.4 percentage points for 2009 and 
13.5 percentage points for 2010. For both 2009 and 2010, a higher 
proportion of all matched offenders sentenced to less than 12 months 
had re-offended within six months of release than of the matched 
offenders sentenced to between 1 and 4 years did in the full twelve 
months. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
 
Figure 1.4: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
released from immediate custodial sentences of less than 12 
months compared with matched offenders released from 
custodial sentences of between 1 and 4 years, over the one year 
re-offending follow-up period, for 2010. 
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into follow-up period
Immediate Custody (1-4 years)
Immediate Custody (less than 12 months)
All bar one of the standardised differences across both years were less 
than 5%, suggesting that the groups were well matched on virtually all 
of the relevant offender characteristics. The sensitivity analysis15 to test 
for the potential influence of unobserved factors reduced the difference 
in re-offending rate between the sentences slightly to 7.7 percentage 
points for 2010 and 9.1 percentage points for 2009, though the 
difference remained statistically significant. 
Immediate custody (more than 6 to less than 12 months) 
compared with immediate custody (less than or equal to 6 
months) 
As described above, an issue with comparing immediate custodial 
sentences of less than 12 months with custodial sentences of between 
1 and 4 years is that it is hard to draw conclusions about the impact of 
                                                          
15 The randomly generated factor had a linear correlation with re-offending of 0.6 in 2010 and 
0.56 in 2009. 
 20

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
custodial sentence duration on re-offending because of differences in 
supervision post-release and access to interventions in prison. For this 
reason, custodial sentences less than 12 months were split in half to 
compare offenders sentenced to less than or equal to 6 months with 
offenders sentenced to more than 6 but less than 12 months. Offenders 
in each category do not receive supervision by Probation post-release.  
The analysis found that offenders discharged from immediate custodial 
sentences of more than 6 to less than 12 months re-offended at a lower 
rate than matched offenders discharged from immediate custodial 
sentences of less than or equal to 6 months. They also committed 
fewer re-offences per offender. This was the same for both 2009 and 
2010. This suggests that a longer custodial sentence length may have 
more of an effect on re-offending than a shorter one, at least for 
offenders sentenced to less than 12 months who could have received 
either sentence length from the judge.  
In both years, though, the difference in the proportion of re-offenders 
receiving an immediate custodial sentence was non-significant.  
Table 1.5: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving immediate custodial sentences of more than 6 to less 
than 12 months compared with matched offenders receiving 
immediate custodial sentences of less than or equal to 6 months, 
for 2010.  
Immediate 
Custody 
(less than or 
equal to 6 
months)
Immediate 
Custody 
(more than 6 
months to 
less than 12 
months)
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
55.2%
50.3%
4.8 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
2.64
2.34
0.30  
For this comparison, the one year follow-up period begins when the 
offender is released from custody. For both years, the difference in re-
offending rate between the custodial sentence lengths became 
apparent early into the follow-up period. For 2010, almost a third 
(32.4%) of offenders released from immediate custodial sentences of 
less than or equal to 6 months had re-offended three months after 
release, compared with a quarter of offenders (25.7%) released from 
immediate custodial sentences of more than 6 to less than 12 months - 
a difference of 6.7 percentage points.  
 
 
 21

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Figure 1.5: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
released from immediate custodial sentences of more than 6 
months to less than 12 months compared with matched offenders 
released from custodial sentences of less than or equal to 6 
months, over the one year re-offending follow-up period, for 2010. 
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into follow-up period
Immediate Custody (less than or equal
to 6 months)
Immediate Custody (more than 6
months to less than 12 months)
 
All bar one of the standardised differences were less than 5%, 
suggesting that the sentence groups were well matched on all the 
relevant offender and offence characteristics. The sensitivity analysis16 
to test for the potential influence of unobserved factors reduced the 
difference in re-offending rate between the sentences to 3.5 
percentage points for 2010 and 3.1 percentage points for 2009, a slight 
reduction though it remained statistically significant.  
Suspended sentence orders compared with community orders 
Offenders receiving a suspended sentence order re-offended at a lower 
rate than matched offenders receiving a community order and 
committed fewer re-offences per offender. The differences were 
consistent across both years. 
The difference in re-offending custody rate was also consistent for both 
2009 and 2010, though offenders sentenced to a suspended sentence 
order who re-offended within the follow-up period were more likely to 
                                                          
16 The randomly generated factor had a linear correlation with re-offending of 0.6 in 2010 and 
0.56 in 2010. 
 22

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
be given a custodial sentence than matched offenders sentenced to a 
community order. This is not surprising as under the terms of a 
suspended sentence order, offenders will serve the original custodial 
term given in the suspended sentence order should they re-offend 
whilst serving the order. 
Table 1.6: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving a suspended sentence order compared with matched 
offenders receiving a community order, for 2010.  
Community 
Orders
Suspended 
Sentence 
Orders
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
36.8%
33.6%
3.2 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
1.24
1.07
0.17
Proven re-offending custody rate
25.6%
48.1%
-22.5 pp  
For both community orders and suspended sentence orders, the one 
year re-offending follow-up period begins when the sentence is given at 
court. For both 2009 and 2010, the difference in the re-offending rate 
between the two sentences was very small at the beginning of the one 
year follow-up period; two months into each sentence, the difference in 
the re-offending rate was 1.4 percentage points for 2010. For this 
comparison, the difference in re-offending rate between the two 
sentences rose slightly each month until the end of the year.  
Figure 1.6: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
receiving a suspended sentence order compared with matched 
offenders receiving a community order, over the one year re-
offending follow-up period, for 2010. 
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into follow-up period
Community Orders
Suspended Sentence Orders
 
 23

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
For this comparison all the standardised differences were less than 5%, 
for both years, suggesting that the groups were well matched on all 
offender and offence characteristics.   
Conditional discharges compared with community orders 
Offenders receiving a conditional discharge had a lower one year re-
offending rate, committed fewer re-offences per offender and had a 
lower re-offending custody rate than a matched group of offenders who 
received a community order. The differences in the latter two re-
offending outcomes were similar for both 2009 and 2010, though the 
difference in one year re-offending rate was higher in 2010 (3.7 
percentage points) than for 2009 (5.1 percentage points). 
Table 1.7: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving a conditional discharge compared with matched 
offenders receiving a community order, for 2010.  
Community 
Orders
Conditional 
Discharges
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
39.6%
34.5%
5.1 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
1.42
1.15
0.27
Proven re-offending custody rate
23.2%
17.8%
5.4 pp  
For both community orders and conditional discharges, the one year 
re-offending follow-up period begins on the date the sentence is 
received. As with the community order against suspended sentence 
order comparison, the percentage point difference in the one year re-
offending rate between the sentences grew over time as Figure 6 
shows. After two months the difference for 2010 was 1.9 percentage 
points, with this increasing to 5.1 percentage points by the end of the 
follow-up period.  
 24

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Figure 1.7: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
receiving a conditional discharge compared with matched 
offenders receiving a community order, over the one year re-
offending follow-up period, for 2010. 
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into follow-up period
Community Orders
Conditional Discharges
 
For this comparison all the standardised differences were less than 5%; 
the highest standardised difference for any offender and offence 
characteristic across both years was 2%. This suggests the groups 
were very well matched.  
Community orders compared with police recorded fines 
Offenders receiving a community order had a higher re-offending rate 
and re-offending frequency rate than a matched group of offenders 
receiving a fine, but the difference was small. There was a larger 
difference in the proportion of re-offenders who received an immediate 
custodial sentence for their re-offence. These differences were similar 
across both 2009 and 2010, though the difference in re-offending 
frequency rate in 2009 was non-significant. 
Table 1.8: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving a community order compared with matched offenders 
receiving a fine, for 2010 
Community 
Orders
Fines
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
38.7%
37.8%
0.9 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
1.35
1.32
0.03
Proven re-offending custody rate
25.1%
18.0%
7.2 pp  
Looking at changes in the re-offending rate over the one year follow-up 
period did not yield any interesting findings for this comparison, as the 
 25

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
difference between the re-offending rates was very small throughout 
the period, fluctuating between -1.3 and 1 percentage point for each 
month. 
For this comparison all the standardised differences were less than 5%, 
for both years, suggesting that the groups were well matched on all 
offender and offence characteristics.   
Conditional discharges compared with police recorded fines 
Offenders receiving a conditional discharge were less likely to re-offend 
than a matched group of offenders receiving a fine. They also 
committed fewer re-offences per offender. The differences between the 
sentences were similar for both 2009 and 2010.  
For 2009, there was a non-significant difference between the 
sentences in the proportion of re-offenders who were sentenced to 
custody for their re-offence. For 2010, however, offenders receiving a 
conditional discharge had a slightly higher re-offending custody rate 
than matched offenders receiving a fine, of 1 percentage point. 
Table 1.9: One year re-offending outcome data for offenders 
receiving a conditional discharge compared with matched 
offenders receiving a fine, for 2010.  
Fines
Conditional 
Discharges
Difference
One year proven re-offending rate
40.0%
34.5%
5.5 pp
Frequency of re-offences per offender
1.48
1.15
0.32
Proven re-offending custody rate
16.9%
17.8%
-1.0 pp  
For both fines and conditional discharges, the one year follow-up 
period for measuring re-offending begins when the sentence is 
received at court. The difference in re-offending rate between 
conditional discharges and fines grew month by month. For example, 
after two months the difference was only 3 percentage points for 2010. 
This growing difference over time may be due to the nature of each 
sentence. Conditional discharges are given for a period of time set by 
the court, within which the offender will be sentenced for both the old 
and new offence should they re-offend. As such there is an extra 
incentive for the offender not to re-offend as compared with fines which 
are imposed immediately. 
 26

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
 27
Figure 1.9: One year proven re-offending rate for offenders 
receiving a conditional discharge compared with matched 
offenders receiving a fine, over the one year re-offending follow-
up period, for 2010. 
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
330
365
Days into follow-up period
Fines
Conditional Discharges
For this comparison all the standardised differences were less than 2% in 
both years, suggesting the groups were very well matched on all relevant, 
observed offender and offence characteristics.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Annex A: Statistical Tables 
Table A1.1 Proven re-offending outcomes for matched pairs of offenders where one sentencing type is an immediate 
custodial sentence in England and Wales, 2009 to 2010.  
 
One year proven 
re-offending rate
Frequency of re-offences 
per offender
Proven re-offending 
custody rate³
One year proven 
re-offending rate
Frequency of re-offences 
per offender
Proven re-offending
custody rate³
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Immediate Custody (less than 12 months) †
62.3%
3.23
43.2%
62.5%
3.39
44.4%
Community Orders
55.5%
2.34
31.9%
56.2%
2.44
33.3%
Difference 
6.8 ***
0.89 ***
11.4 ***
6.4 ***
0.95 ***
11.1 ***
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Immediate Custody (less than 12 months) †
62.2%
3.21
43.2%
62.5%
3.37
44.4%
Suspended Sentence Orders
53.2%
2.04
54.3%
53.9%
2.23
55.5%
Difference 
9.1 ***
1.17 ***
-11.1 ***
8.6 ***
1.14 ***
-11.1 ***
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Immediate Custody (less than 12 months) †
62.3%
3.22
N/A
62.6%
3.39
N/A
Court Orders (Community Orders and SSOs)
55.1%
2.28
N/A
55.7%
2.45
N/A
Difference 
7.2 ***
0.95 ***
N/A
6.8 ***
0.94 ***
N/A
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Immediate Custody (less than 12 months) †
62.3%
3.23
43.2%
62.5%
3.39
44.4%
Immediate Custody (1 to 4 years)
49.5%
2.19
42.8%
50.5%
2.02
47.8%
Difference 
12.8 ***
1.04 ***
0.4
12.0 ***
1.37 ***
-3.4 ***
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Immediate Custody (less than or equal to 6 months)
56.8%
2.64
40.5%
55.2%
2.64
42.1%
Immediate Custody (more than 6 to less than 12 months) †
52.2%
2.34
41.5%
50.3%
2.34
41.3%
Difference 
4.6 ***
0.30 ***
-1.0
4.8 ***
0.30 ***
1.5
*** Significant at the 0.1% level, ** Significant at the 1% level, * Significant at the 5% level
¹ Differences in proven re-offending rate and proven re-offending custody rate between sentences are expressed in percentage points.
² Differences in proven re-offending frequency rate between sentences are expressed in terms of number of re-offences per offender.
³ The proven re-offending custody rate refers to the proportion of re-offenders only.
† Indicates the sentence designated the 'treatment' group for the comparison.
7,472 (8)
7,088 (4)
42,288 (64)
36,358 (38)
42,353 (0)
36,396 (0)
42346 (17)
36596 (17)
2009
2010
42,352 (0)
36,391 (5)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28

One year proven 
re-offending rate
Fr
oven re-offending 
custody rate
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Community Orders
37.7%
25.6%
Suspended Sentence Orders †
34.4%
48.1%
Difference 
3.3 ***
-22.5 ***
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Community Orders
39.2%
23.2%
Conditional Discharges †
35.5%
17.8%
Difference 
3.7 ***
5.4 ***
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Community Orders †
38.6%
25.1%
Fines (recorded by the police)
37.5%
18.0%
Difference 
1.1 ***
7.2 ***
Matched pairs (and unmatched 'treated' offenders)
Fines (recorded by the police)
40.6%
16.9%
Conditional Discharges †
35.5%
17.8%
Difference 
5.1 ***
-1.0 **
*** Significant at the 0.1% level, ** Significant at the 1% level, * Significant at the 5% level
¹ Differences in proven re-offending rate and proven re-offending custody rate between 
² Differences in proven re-offending frequency rate between sentences are expressed 
³ The proven re-offending custody rate refers to the proportion of re-offenders only.
† Indicates the sentence designated the 'treatment' group for the comparison.
equency of re-offences 
per offender
Proven re-offending 
custody rate
One year proven 
re-offending rate
Frequency of re-offences 
per offender
Pr
1.24
25.6%
36.8%
1.24
1.06
47.7%
33.6%
1.07
0.18 ***
-22.2 ***
3.2 ***
0.17 ***
1.37
23.0%
39.6%
1.42
1.18
17.2%
34.5%
1.15
0.19 ***
5.8 ***
5.1 ***
0.27 ***
1.29
24.6%
38.7%
1.35
1.28
17.5%
37.8%
1.32
0.01
7.1 ***
0.9 ***
0.03 *
1.49
16.9%
40.0%
1.48
1.18
17.2%
34.5%
1.15
0.30 ***
-0.3
5.5 ***
0.32 ***
sentences are expressed in percentage points.
in terms of number of re-offences per offender.
2009
2010
42,085 (2)
43,069 (5)
62,450 (8)
67,457 (3)
121,746 (0)
117,646 (0)
62,455 (3)
67,449 (11)
 
Table A1.2 Proven re-offending outcomes for matched pairs of offenders for non-custodial court sentences in England and 
Wales, 2009 to 2010 
2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
 29
 

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Annex B: List of variables tested for inclusion in logistic 
regression models used to calculate propensity scores17 
Offender Demographics 
 Gender 
 Ethnicity 
 
Index Offence (this is the offence that led to the sentence) 
 Age at date of index offence* 
 OGRS offence code (condensed 20 categories for the index offence, 
e.g. robbery, violence, burglary and so on, as in the Offender Group 
Reconviction Scale 3) 
 Severity of index offence (ranked 1 to 3 with 1 being the most severe). 
 
Offending History18 (prior to index offence) 
 Number of previous offences* 
 Copas Rate19 
 Number of previous custodial sentences* 
 Number of previous court convictions* 
 Number of previous court orders* 
 Age at first contact with the criminal justice system* 
 Number of previous offences split by severity of offence* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                          
17 A * indicates that a squared term was also tested for inclusion in the model. Squared terms are able to 
account for non-linear relationships between variables and the likelihood of receiving treatment or of re-
offending (Wermink et al., 2010).  
18 All offending history variables exclude Penalty Notices for Disorder. 
19 The Copas Rate controls for the rate at which an offender has built up convictions. The higher it is, the 
more likely the offender is to re-offend. The formula is as follows; 









10
 
 
years
in 
career 
 
criminal
 
of
Length 
1
 
cautions
or 
 s
appearance
court 
 
of
Number 
log
 
rate
 
copas
e
 
 30

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Paper 2 End of sentence re-offending 
Summary 
This paper presents the work done to develop an end of sentence measure of 
re-offending for offenders sentenced to short prison sentences (less than 12 
months), and court orders (community orders and suspended sentence orders - 
SSOs). Not all offenders successfully reach the end of their sentence – for 
example those who commit a further offence while under probation service 
supervision and are subsequently given a custodial sentence. Such offenders 
are not included in this end of sentence measure of re-offending.  
The main findings are: 
 For court orders, the end of sentence re-offending rate in 2010 was 22.4 
per cent, lower than the proven re-offending rate of 34.1 per cent. 
 
 For short prison sentences of less than 12 months, the end of sentence 
re-offending rate in 2010 was 51.3 per cent, lower than the proven re-
offending rate of 57.6 per cent. 
 
However, these results do not control for the differences in offender 
characteristics which mean re-offending rates for different sentences cannot be 
directly compared. Paper 1 of this Compendium and papers in previous 
Compendia have shown how propensity score matching can be used to 
compare the relative effectiveness of different sentences in reducing re-
offending. 
 
Considering the complexity involved in developing an end of sentence measure 
for all offenders and the limitations for comparing sentencing effectiveness we 
do not propose to further develop an end of sentence re-offending measure. 
Introduction  
 
This paper is an update to the discussion paper on the options for measuring 
end of sentence re-offending which was published in the 2012 Compendium20. 
That discussion paper considered some of the issues involved in defining end 
of sentence re-offending, and proposed how such a measure could be 
developed using existing data sources.  
In that paper the Ministry of Justice made a commitment to continue work to 
derive an end of sentence measure of re-offending, looking initially at offenders 
released from short prison sentences (less than 12 months) and those ending 
court orders (community sentences and suspended sentence orders – SSOs). 
This paper presents the findings from that work.  
                                                          
20 See Paper 7, ‘End of Sentence Re-Offending: What are the options?’ in 2012 Compendium of Re-
offending Statistics and Analysis 
 31

2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Methodology  
The headline re-offending measure published as National Statistics by the 
Ministry of Justice is based on a cohort of all offenders who were released from 
custody, received a non-custodial conviction at court, received a caution, 
reprimand, warning or tested positive for opiates or cocaine over a 12 month 
period. This means that re-offending is measured from the start of sentence for 
some offenders (for example, those given a community sentence or a 
suspended sentence order), and from the mid-point of sentence for some other 
offenders (those released from custody, who are typically released at the 
halfway point of the sentence).  
However, following a Ministry of Justice consultation on improvements to re-
offending statistics in 2011, there was some user demand for a measure of re-
offending that used the same starting point for all offenders. The discussion 
paper published in the 2012 Compendium outlined a number of technical and 
data challenges in developing an end of sentence measure. These challenges 
still remain but in this paper we have worked through some of the issues 
around handling breaches and other cohort adjustments to develop an end of 
sentence measure of re-offending for offenders sentenced to short prison 
sentences (less than 12 months), community sentences and SSOs. The data 
used to create this end of sentence measure is described below.  
Court orders  
Probation Trusts keep electronic records on all offenders they are currently 
supervising. When an offender leaves supervision the date of termination and 
the reason why the termination occurred are added to the offender’s record.  
A termination can occur for several reasons, which are typically grouped into 
three categories: negative, positive and neutral. Negative reasons for 
termination include failure to comply with the conditions of the order and 
committing a further offence. Positive reasons for termination include the order 
terminating normally (i.e. the offender completed the conditions of the 
supervision) and early termination for good progress. Reasons for neutral 
terminations include the death of the offender before completion of the order 
and the order being revoked by the court because of a change in the offender's 
circumstances. 
In developing an end of sentence measure we have included offenders whose 
court order terminated in 2010 for a positive reason. Offenders who terminated 
for neutral and negative reasons were not included because they either had not 
fully completed their sentence (negative reasons), or it did not make sense to 
monitor their re-offending (neutral reasons). 
Less than 12 month prison sentences  
Offenders sentenced to custody are usually released from prison at the halfway 
point of their sentence. Adults released from a short custodial sentence are not 
currently subject to supervision on release, but remain ‘at risk’ in the community 
until the end of their sentence (the sentence expiry date). If they commit a 
further offence during the ‘at risk’ period, they may have to serve the 
outstanding part of the sentence. 
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In developing an end of sentence measure we have included offenders given a 
custodial sentence of less than 12 months whose sentence expiry date 
occurred in 2010, and who had not returned to custody prior to their sentence 
expiry date. We have excluded all offenders who returned to custody after initial 
release and prior to their sentence expiry date. 
Re-offending rates  
After selecting the cohort of court order and short prison sentence offenders, 
re-offending rates were produced using the same methodology as is used for 
the National Statistics Proven Re-offending measure21.  
The re-offending rates presented here have been produced by matching data 
from the prison IT system, probation case management systems and the 
Ministry of Justice extract of the Police National Computer. Although care is 
taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject 
to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system. 
Results  
Table 2.1 shows the end of sentence re-offending rates for offenders ending 
their sentences in 2010 and, for comparison, the 2010 figures for the proven re-
offending measure (where re-offending is measured from the start of a court 
order or from the point of release from custody). However these results cannot 
be directly compared because, in addition to any timing issues (an offender 
may start a court order in one year and finish it the following year) they include 
different types of offenders.  
Looking first at court orders, the proven re-offending measure includes all 
offenders who commenced a court order, whereas the end of sentence 
measure only includes those whose order terminated for a positive reason. 
Around 25 per cent of court orders terminate for a negative reason, including 
10 per cent that terminate because the offender has committed a further 
offence22. This group are likely to have a higher re-offending rate than those 
whose orders terminate for positive reasons.  As a consequence it is not 
surprising that the end of sentence re-offending rate (which excludes those 
whose court order terminated for a negative reason) is lower than the proven 
re-offending measure (22.4 compared to 34.1 per cent). 
Similarly on the prison side, the proven re-offending measure includes all 
offenders released from a prison sentence of less than 12 months, whereas the 
end of sentence measure only includes the subset who had not returned to 
custody prior to the end of the sentence.  Those offenders excluded from the 
end of sentence measure are likely to have a higher re-offending rate than 
those offenders who are included in the measure.  As a consequence it is not 
surprising that the end of sentence re-offending rate is lower than the proven 
                                                          
21 See Proven Re-Offending Statistics: Definitions and Measurement. 
22 Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2010, table A, 4.24 
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
re-offending rate for offenders given custodial sentences of less than 12 
months (51.3 compared to 57.6 per cent). 
Table 2.1: End of sentence re-offending rates and proven re-offending 
measure for adults sentenced to court orders and prison sentences of 
less than 12 months, for 2010.   
Court orders
Less than 12 month 
prison sentences
Court orders
Less than 12 
month prison 
sentences
22.4
51.3
34.1
57.6
2.49
4.11
3.18
4.73
0.56
2.11
1.08
2.72
56,181
54,835
157,796
83,107
22,577
13,334
49,636
17,560
100,741
25,972
145,459
30,512
End of sentence re-offending 
measure
Proven re-offending measure
Number of re-offenders
Number of offenders in cohort
Proportion of offenders who re-
offend (%)
Average number of re-offences per 
re-offender
Average number of re-offences per 
offender (frequency rate)
Number of re-offences
The end of sentence re-offending rate is much lower for court orders than for 
short prison sentences – 22.4 per cent and 51.3 per cent respectively. This is 
similar to the pattern seen for the proven re-offending measure (34.1 and 57.6 
per cent) and partly reflects the different characteristics of offenders in each 
group. 
Conclusions  
The results presented provide a limited picture of re-offending at the end of 
sentence and could potentially be further developed to include offenders who 
have served longer custodial sentences (although identifying the cohort for this 
group would be considerably more difficult than for court orders or short prison 
sentences – see the 2012 Compendium article for more details). 
Beyond the potential measurement issues, there remain a number of 
disadvantages to an end of sentence measure: 
 it excludes life and indeterminate sentenced prisoners who remain under 
supervision by offender management services for the rest of their life after 
release from prison; 
  
 it excludes the most prolific of offenders who are repeatedly re-sentenced 
before the end of their current sentence, and therefore never actually end a 
sentence to be included in such a measure; 
 
 it ignores offences committed whilst under probation supervision before the 
end of sentence; and 
 
 it does not remove the differences in offender characteristics which mean 
re-offending rates for different sentences cannot be directly compared. 
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
 
Addressing the last bullet above, Paper 1 of this Compendium, and papers in 
previous Compendia have shown how propensity score matching can be used 
to compare the relative effectiveness of different sentences in reducing re-
offending. In doing this work we are able to both control for different offender 
characteristics and test the results by controlling for time spent in prison. 
Ministry of Justice statisticians currently assess the comparisons using 
propensity score matching as our best current estimates of effectiveness of 
different sentences at reducing re-offending.  
Given the complexity involved in developing the cohort for longer sentenced 
prisoners, and the overall limitations of an end of sentence measure, we do not 
propose to further develop an end of sentence re-offending measure.
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Appendix A Glossary of terms 
Cohort definition used in the Proven Re-offending Statistics Quarterly 
Bulletin in England and Wales publication 
The re-offending cohort consists of offenders who were released from custody, 
received a non-custodial conviction at court, received a caution, reprimand, 
warning or tested positive for opiates or cocaine during the year. This cohort’s 
criminal history is collated and criminal behaviour is tracked over the following 
one year. Any offence committed in this one year follow-up period and 
receiving a court conviction, caution, reprimand or warning (either in the one 
year follow-up or in a further six months waiting period) counts as a re-
conviction.  
The latest available publication is the Proven re-offending quarterly – July 2010 
to June 2011; Ministry of Justice, April 2013. 
Criminal Justice Act 2003 (CJA03) 
For offences committed on or after 4 April 2005, the new community order 
replaced all existing community sentences for adults. The Act introduced a new 
suspended sentence order for offences which pass the custody threshold. It 
also changed the release arrangements for prisoners. See Definitions and 
Measurement23 for more information. 
Police National Computer 
The Police National Computer (PNC) is the police's administrative IT system 
used by all police forces in England and Wales and managed by the Home 
Office. As with any large scale recording system the PNC is subject to possible 
errors with data entry and processing. The Ministry of Justice maintains a 
database based on weekly extracts of selected data from the PNC in order to 
compile statistics and conduct research on re-offending and criminal histories. 
Prison IT System 
Prison establishments record details for individual inmates on the prison IT 
system (Prison-NOMIS).  The information recorded includes details such as 
date of birth, sex, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, custody type, offence, 
reception and discharge dates and, for sentenced prisoners, sentence length.  
The data from individual prison establishments then feeds through to a central 
computer database, called the Inmate Information System (IIS), from which 
data extracts are used to produce the various analyses of prison population, 
receptions, discharges and time served in custody. 
 
                                                          
23 Offender management statistics: definitions and measurement; Ministry of Justice, April 2011. 
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Probation Case Management System 
Since 2005, detailed information on the supervision of offenders (at the 
individual offender level) has been submitted by probation trusts on a monthly 
basis. These monthly ‘probation listings’ include information on offenders 
starting and terminating probation supervision and those supervised on the 
probation caseload at the end of each month. 
Proven offence 
A proven offence is defined as an offence which results in the offender 
receiving a reprimand, warning, caution or conviction. 
Recordable offences 
Recordable offences are those that the police are required to record on the 
Police National Computer. They include all offences for which a custodial 
sentence can be given plus a range of other offences defined as recordable in 
legislation. They exclude a range of less serious summary offences, for 
example television licence evasion, driving without insurance, speeding and 
vehicle tax offences. 
Termination 
A period of supervision by the Probation Service (e.g. a Community Order) 
which comes to an end because the order has been completed successfully, 
because the order has been breached and terminated early for negative 
reasons (such as failing to comply with its requirements) or because of some 
other neutral reason, such as the order being quashed by the court or because 
the offender has died. 
Adult sentencing types 
Offenders can be sentenced at a magistrates’ court or the Crown Court. The 
sentences include immediate custody, a suspended sentence order, a 
community order, a fine, a conditional discharge or an absolute discharge. 
 Absolute discharge – When a court decides someone is guilty, but 
decides not to punish them further at this time, they will be given a 
‘discharge’. Discharges are given for minor offences. An ‘absolute 
discharge’ means that no more action will be taken. 
 Community orders - For offences committed on or after 4 April 2005, 
the new community order introduced under the CJA 2003 replaced all 
existing community sentences for those aged 18 years and over. The 
court must impose one or more requirements depending on the offences 
and the offender. The requirements are:  
o unpaid work (formerly community service/community punishment) 
– a requirement to complete between 40 and 300 hours’ unpaid 
work;  
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
o activity – for example, to attend basic skills classes;  
o programme – there are several designed to reduce the prospects 
of re-offending;  
o prohibited activity – a requirement not do so something that is 
likely to lead to further offending;  
o curfew – which is electronically monitored;  
o exclusion – this is not used frequently as there is no reliable 
electronic monitoring yet available;  
o residence – requirement to reside only where approved by 
probation officer;  
o mental health treatment (requires offender’s consent);  
o drug rehabilitation (requires offender’s consent);  
o alcohol treatment (requires offender’s consent);  
o supervision – meetings with probation officer to address 
needs/offending behaviour; and, 
o attendance centre – three hours of activity, between a minimum 
of 12 hours and a maximum of 36 in total.  
Typically, the more serious the offence and the more extensive the 
offender’s needs, the more requirements there will be. Most orders will 
comprise one or two requirements but there are packages of several 
requirements available where required. The court tailors the order as 
appropriate and is guided by the Probation Service through a pre-
sentence report. 
 Conditional discharge - This is where the offender remains liable to 
punishment for the offence if they are convicted of a further offence 
within a period specified by the court (but not more than three years). 
 Fine - A financial penalty imposed following conviction. 
 Immediate Custody - The offender is given a sentence to be served in 
prison (adults aged over 21) or Young Offenders Institute (adults aged 
18-20 and 15-17 year olds). If the offender was given a sentence of 12 
months or over, or was aged under 22 on release, the offender is 
supervised by the Probation Service on release. 
 Prison Sentences – under 12 months: Those sentenced to under 12 
months (made under the Criminal Justice Act 1991) spend the first half 
of their sentence in prison and are then released and considered ‘at 
risk’ for the remaining period. This means they are under no positive 
obligations and do not report to the probation service but, if they commit 
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
a further imprisonable offence during the at risk period, they can be 
made to serve the remainder of the sentence in addition to the 
punishment for the new offence. The exception to this is those aged 18 
to 20 who have a minimum of three months’ supervision on release.  
 Prison Sentences - 12 months or over: The Criminal Justice Act 2003 
created a distinction between standard determinate sentences (for 12 
months or more) and public protection sentences. Offenders 
sentenced to a standard determinate sentence serve the first half in 
prison and the second half in the community on licence. Offenders 
convicted of a sexual or violent offence may be sentenced to a public 
protection sentence. There are two such sentences: Imprisonment or 
detention for Public Protection (IPP), an indeterminate sentence where 
the offender will serve the minimum term in prison as set by the judge 
and then is eligible to be released if considered safe by the Parole 
Board. If and when released, the offender must serve at least ten years 
on licence in the community. An Extended sentence for Public Protection 
(EPP) comprises the normal determinate custodial period plus an 
extended period on licence. Changes introduced in the Criminal Justice 
and Immigration Act 2008 mean that offenders sentenced to an EPP are 
now released automatically at the halfway point of the custodial period 
with licence extending from then until the end of the extension period 
 Suspended Sentence Order (SSO) - The Criminal Justice Act 2003 
introduced a new suspended sentence order. This is a custodial 
sentence which is suspended and in addition the court imposes one or 
more community requirements, which are the same as those available 
under a community order. The order consists of an ‘operational period’ 
(the time for which the custodial sentence is suspended) and a 
‘supervision period’ (the time during which any requirements take effect). 
Both may be between six months and two years and the ‘supervision 
period’ cannot be longer than the ‘operational period’, although it may be 
shorter. Failure to comply with the requirements of the order or 
commission of another offence will normally result in the custodial 
sentence being given effect. 
Disposal 
This is an umbrella term referring both to sentences given by the court and pre-
court decisions made by the police. Disposals may be divided into four 
separate categories of increasing seriousness starting with pre-court disposals 
then moving into first-tier and community-based penalties through to custodial 
sentences. 
Waiting period 
This is the additional time beyond the follow-up period to allow for offences 
committed towards the end of the follow-up period to be proved. 
 
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
Explanatory notes 
The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as 
National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service 
Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Official 
Statistics. 
Designation can be broadly interpreted to mean that the statistics: 
 meet identified user needs; 
 are well explained and readily accessible; 
 are produced according to sound methods; and 
 are managed impartially and objectively in the public interest. 
Once statistics have been designated as National Statistics it is a statutory 
requirement that the Code of Practice shall continue to be observed. 
Symbols and conventions 
All figures have been rounded to either one or two decimal places, except 
offender counts.  
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2013 Compendium of re-offending statistics and analysis 
 
 
 41
Contact Points 
Current and previous editions of this publication are available for download at: 
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/series/reoffending-
statistics  
Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office: 
Tel: xx-xxxx-xxxx 
Email: xxx@xxx.xx    
Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to: 
Mike Elkins 
Justice Statistics Analytical Services 
Ministry of Justice 
7th Floor, 102 Petty France, London SW1H 9AJ 
Tel: xx-xxxx-xxxx 
 
General enquiries about the statistical work of the Ministry of Justice can be e-
mailed to: xxx@xxx.xx   
 
General information about the official statistics system of the United Kingdom is 
available from www.statistics.gov.uk  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Crown copyright 2013 
Produced by the Ministry of Justice 
Alternative formats are available on request from 
xxx@xxx.xx