Prison Sentences: Reoffenders
Commons · Question 8331 · Tabled 9 Jun 2026 · Ministry of Justice · Official record
Answered 18 Jun 2026
Question
Asked by Claire Young
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of short custodial sentences on the reoffending rate.
Answer
Answered by Jake Richards, 18 Jun 2026
Evidence published in both 2015 and 2019, which matched groups of offenders, found that short sentences were associated with higher reoffending compared to court orders by approximately 4 percentage points. We have followed this evidence and the Sentencin...