RECONVICTION RATES OF ADULT MALES AFTER DIFFERENT SENTENCES

Abstract

For a long time the only comparison of reconviction rates after the different sentences available to English courts was Hammond's (1964). This was based on a sample consisting of all offenders convicted in the Metropolitan Police District during March and April 1957. Now that Phillpotts and Lancucki (1979) have published details of a much later and better sample it seems worthwhile to carry out an analysis on Hammond's lines and see how the results compare. The Phillpotts-Lancucki sample consisted of one person in every six (approximately) recorded in the Home Office's Offenders' Index as con victed of a standard list offence in the course of January 1971. Names were taken systematically from an alphabetical list, so that people who had been convicted more than once in that month had no greater chance of being selected than those convicted only once. The follow-up in search of standard list reconvictions covered the six years following the conviction. The information recorded also included previous convictions which had been incurred after 1962 (i.e. in the preceding eight years). The findings were presented in Home Office Research Study 53 ; but the only table (3.4) which dealt with the relationship between the type of sentence and reconviction rates did not take into account the variation in reconviction rates for different types of offence. Phillpotts and Lancucki were kind enough to provide us with the necessary raw figures for a more thorough analysis of the reconviction rates for the 2,06g1 men aged 21 or older who had been sentenced in normal ways 2 for the main standard list offence groups: personal violence, sexual offences, burglary or robbery (together), theft or dishonest handling (together), fraud or forgery (together) and criminal damage. (We would like to record here our thanks for their helpful ness, both in providing the data and in commenting on our analysis.) Their sample is in several ways preferable to Hammond's : ( 1 ) it represents courts throughout England, not merely in London; (2) the follow-up period is a year longer; (3) the information about previous and subsequent convictions is likely to be more accurate because of the existence of the Offenders' Index, which was not set up until the early sixties; (4) the later date of the sample is an obvious advantage, especially since it means that suspended sentences are amongst the disposals. * Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. 1 The entire sample of 5,000 or so included females, young adults and juveniles. We chose adult male offenders because sentencing possibilities are less complicated for them than for young adults or juveniles and because they are more numerous than adult female offenders. a i.e. absolute or conditional discharge, fine, probation, suspended sentence, immediate imprison ment. Community service was not available as a sentence in 1971.