August 2009

FOI ref: 60581

Our ref: IOS 403-09

20 August 09

Mark Charlesworth

Request-14701-f0372225@what dotheyknow.com

Dear Mr Charlesworth

Re: request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Thank you for your enquiry of 27 July asking for “how many convictions have there been since records began?”

The link below will take you to the latest available publication “Criminal Statistics England and Wales 2007” which provides information on the number of convictions for criminal offences in England and Wales for 2007 (latest available). This link gives further links to the Home Office Research Development and Statistics (RDS) website where you can find “earlier publications in this series”. Also, once in the RDS website, if you click on “publications” you will be able to locate archive data related to the criminal justice system from 1979 onwards. http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/criminalannual.htm. Data for 2008 will be available later this year.

Criminal statistics data prior to 1979 are not readily available in electronic format and to list and collate such information would be disproportionate to cost.

Section 12 of the Act makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit which for central government is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the Department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

Please note that criminal convictions data held by the Ministry of Justice cover England and Wales only. Information for Scotland and Northern Ireland are matters for the Scottish Executive (www.scotland.gov.uk) and the Northern Ireland Office (www.nio.gov.uk) respectively.

If you are dissatisfied with the results of your request for information you may request an internal review of our handling of your request by submitting your complaint to the address below, quoting reference number 60581.

Data Access and Compliance Unit

Information Directorate

Ministry of Justice

6^th Floor, Zone C

102 Petty France

London SW1H 9AJ

During the independent review the department's handling of your information request will be reassessed by staff who were not involved in providing you with this response. Should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you will have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner as established by section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yours sincerely

Dave Perry

Evidence and Analysis Unit (E&A)

Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR)

Ministry of Justice

Email: [email address]

1

Evidence and Analysis unit (E&A)

Office for Criminal Justice Reform (OCJR)

Ministry of Justice

E: [email address]

Evidence and Analysis unit (E&A)

Office for Criminal justice Reform (OCJR)

Ministry of Justice

E: [email address]