Extent, nature and outcomes of serious and organised crime prosecuted before the criminal courts in England and Wales.

• In Event: Sentencing and justice outcomes over defendants' ethnicity, gender, age and area of residence

Abstract

We know little about the extent and nature of serious and organised crime (SOC) being prosecuted before the criminal courts, or the outcomes associated with these cases. This exploratory study is one of the first to emerge from a ground-breaking data-linkage initiative, led by the Ministry of Justice, funded by ADR UK, and hosted by the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom. It enables accredited researchers to access and link de-identified, individual-level, research-ready administrative data from across criminal and civil justice, and education systems for research purposes. Drawing on over 12.6 million linked records from the criminal courts and prison systems over an eight-year period (2013-2020), this presentation overviews the main findings and implications from a study examining the extent, nature and outcomes for SOC appearances and cases heard before the criminal courts in England and Wales. Using a comparative design, the study assessed: the severity and geographic distribution of offending associated with SOC; the extent to which prosecutions were discontinued, dismissed, or resulted in an acquittal (and the factors most predictive of this outcome); and the rate and frequency of reappearances before the criminal courts over time.

Author

• Tim McSweeney, University of Hertfordshire