Career criminals walk free in soft justice scandal (2024)

Career criminals with more than 100 previous convictions are being spared jail, The Telegraph can reveal.

In more than 4,000 such cases since 2007, offenders have avoided prison. The proportion walking free from court has quadrupled in the past 16 years, with an average of five a week being spared jail in each of the past 10 years.

The Ministry of Justice data, the most comprehensive analysis of its kind, shows that offenders with more than 50 previous convictions have been spared jail in more than 50,000 cases since 2007. The number of career criminals avoiding jail has nearly tripled from 1,289 in 2007 to 3,325 in 2023.

The figures follow warnings by Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, in the wake of the recent riots that a soft approach to justice has led too many people to “feel as though crime has no consequences”.

Among the rioters were many prolific offenders. Adam Wharton, 28, who admitted burgling a library in Liverpool, had 16 previous convictions for 26 offences. A fellow rioter who torched a police van had more than a dozen previous crimes, from robbing charities to dealing drugs.

After the Metropolitan Police arrested rioters at a protest in Whitehall, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that about 70 per cent had previous convictions, including for weapon possession, violence, drugs and other serious offences.

Senior advisers to Labour have warned that, with police solving just 5.5 per cent of all crimes, a third of the rate of seven years ago, offenders have become “emboldened” by the low chances of being caught, convicted and jailed.

Neil O’Brien, a former Tory minister who obtained the MoJ data through parliamentary questions, called for longer prison sentences for repeat offenders. They account for half of the 20 million crimes in England and Wales, despite representing less than a tenth of the five million offenders, according to MoJ research.

“A fortune is being spent on catching and prosecuting people who then get a slap on the wrist and offend again,” said Mr O’Brien, the MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston. “With 50 per cent of crime committed by just 10 per cent of offenders, the case for longer sentences for those super-prolific offenders is strong.

“Most people would expect that sentence lengths would massively increase if you were being convicted for the umpteenth time but instead sentencing gets weaker for those with many previous convictions – the ‘more crime less time’ effect.

“Too many people in the criminal justice system are obsessed with community sentences and modish ideas, but the evidence is that jailing the small number of super-prolific offenders who commit an outsized proportion of crime for longer is an effective way to make the public safer.”

Last year, the number of people with 100 convictions who were spared jail hit 252, up from 132 in 2007. The total number of cases over the past 14 years is 4,008. The proportion of those avoiding jail despite 100 convictions has climbed from 0.03 per cent to 0.12 per cent.

Soft justice was evident even when the courts dealt with criminals convicted of violence. Since 2007, 39,000 violent offenders have been spared jail despite having more than 10 previous convictions. Of these, there were 9,688 instances of criminals with 25 previous convictions avoiding prison. Last year alone, it was 532, nearly triple the 184 in 2007.

Even when the courts were confronted with criminals who had repeatedly been convicted for the same offences, including burglary, knife possession and assault, they still did not send them to jail.

The data showed that, in the past three years, offenders had avoided prison despite having up to 21 previous convictions for burglary, up to seven previous convictions for carrying a knife, up to 34 previous convictions for assault, up to seven for sexual assault and up to 14 for robbery.

For every offence type other than drugs, the number of previous convictions that criminals had before they were jailed has increased compared with 2007.

People jailed for burglary had on average 26 previous convictions for any offence. Those jailed for robbery typically had 14.5 previous convictions. For assaulting a police officer, it was 19.6 convictions. Possession of an offensive weapon it was 14, theft 26, and sexual assaults five. For breach of an Asbo, it rose to 38.3.

More than 50 Tory MPs backed proposals by Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, that offenders who hit 45 crimes should face a mandatory two-year custodial sentence each time they are convicted of a further serious offence. The plans, tabled as an amendment to a sentencing Bill, were never put to the vote.

Shabana Mahmood, the Justice Secretary, has pledged to conduct a review of sentencing but faces an overcrowding crisis in prisons which has forced the MoJ to introduce an early release scheme from next month.

A Ministry of Justice source said the figures illustrated “the mess the last Conservative government left the criminal justice system in”.

Tom Tugendhat, the shadow security minister who is also a Tory leadership candidate, said: “Criminality and lawlessness should not be met with empty words but with the full force of the law.”

He added: “Prison works because it punishes offenders and takes dangerous criminals off our streets. Repeat offenders, and the most violent in our society, should face tougher sentences, not softer treatment and early release. Anything else will make our streets and communities less safe and lead to the continued erosion of public trust.”

A government spokesman said: “The first job of this Government is to keep people safe, and the new Lord Chancellor has taken action to make sure the justice system is always able to lock up dangerous offenders, protect the public and reduce reoffending.

“Independent judges and magistrates decide sentences, but we are committed to making sure punishments fit the severity of the crime.”

Career criminals walk free in soft justice scandal (2024)
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