“A life of crime: Offences by serial thugs up 50 per cent in a decade” Daily Mail, 18th March, 2011.

“The number of serious offences being carried out by re-offenders every year has increased by more than half in a decade, figures from the Ministry of Justice show.” Daily Telegraph, 18th March, 2011.

Crime is always a headline-grabbing topic in the media, and Full Fact has done a number of factchecks in this field to make sure that the stories accurately reflect the trends.

So when one Full Fact reader got in touch to raise concerns about the reporting on large increases in the number of serious offences committed by ex-convicts, we took another look at the figures.

The Mail reported that: “The number of serious crimes committed by convicts within a year of finishing their sentence has shot up by 50 per cent in the last decade. Serial offenders either released from jail or completing a community punishment in 2009 carried out 2,000 of the ‘most serious’ offences over the following 12 months.”

On the same issue, the Daily Telegraph said: “Last year it emerged that dangerous and violent criminals committed almost 200 serious further offences despite being under the supervision of the authorities. The figure was a 54 per cent increase on the 326 committed by those ending a sentence in the first quarter of 2000 and a seven per cent rise on the equivalent 470 in 2008.

Looking at the Ministry of Justice report on adult re-conviction from 2009, we can see that the statistics reported by these papers are correct. There have been large increases in convictions for serious offences amongst this group since 2000.

However, the context to this rise is crucial. As the report goes on to say: “The Sexual Offences Act 2003 introduced a large number of new offences which resulted in changes in the coverage of many of the serious sexual offences we are monitoring; as a result the figures for severity for 2004 onwards may not be comparable with those before 2004.”

Essentially, it is not possible to make a comparison back to the 2000 re-offences figures as both papers have done, as the number of offences for which people are being convicted in the serious offences category has increased substantially.

On the reporting of conviction rates, the Express did pick up on the importance of the 2003 Sexual Offences Act. Still going for the hard-hitting headline, they only compare back to 2006, reporting that: “MURDERS, rapes and other horrific crimes committed by convicted criminals after leaving prison have soared by 30 per cent, official statistics show.” Express, 18th of March, 2011.

However, the Ministry of Justice is also skeptical about the value of making annual comparisons of the rates of conviction for the most serious offences. It has stated that: “The small numbers of most serious offences convicted... places a limitation on any robust breakdown analyses of the severity rate... An additional problem posed by the small number of most serious offences is that the overall severity rate is likely to fluctuate year on year... given that a small change in the overall numbers will translate into a large rate change.

Conclusions:

This factcheck shows that when it comes to the reporting of crime and justice, the media is often selective in their analysis.

Both the Daily Telegraph and the Mail report substantial rises in re-offending in the category of serious offences over the last decade, while failing to report that new offences introduced by the Sexual Offences Act 2003 make comparisons to the figures before 2003 questionable.

While the Ministry of Justice also raises doubts about annual comparisons more generally, the Express at least did manage to limit its analysis to the period after 2003.