15.11 Offence categories

An important characteristic featured in the census is “major offence”. Offence categories are derived using Police codes and categories. In an attempt to align with previous census categories the Police category of “Sexual” offending has been split into “Sexual violence” and “Misc” as detailed below. For inmates with more than one offence, the most serious is chosen according to the Ministry of Justice’s “seriousness of offence” scale. For an outline on the history of offence categorisation methods see the time series section 13.5 Major Offence.

Out of approximately 5,000 Police offence codes less than 400 are represented in the list of inmate “major offences”.

For the purposes of summarisation, this census has categorised the inmate “major offences” according to the first two characters of the Police offence code and used the mapping as shown below.

First two characters of offence code	Category	Sub category	Inmates having major offence within category
11	Violence	Homicide	449
12	Violence	Kidnapping and abduction	60
13	Violence	Robbery	589
14	Violence	Grievous assaults	561
15	Violence	Serious assaults	125
16	Violence	Minor assaults	2
17	Violence	Intimidation/threats	67
21	Sexual violence	Sexual attacks	122
22	Misc	Sexual affronts	4
23	Misc	Abnormal sex relations	3
24	Misc	Immoral behaviour	1
26	Sexual violence	Sexual attacks	983
27	Misc	Abnormal sex	5
28	Misc	Immoral behaviour	27
31	Drugs	Drugs (not cannabis)	238
32	Drugs	Drugs(cannabis only)	208
37	Misc	Family offences	1
38	Misc	Family offences continued	15
41	Property	Burglary	735
42	Property	Car conversion etc	80
43	Property	Theft	54
44	Property	Receiving	39
45	Property	Fraud	132
49	Property	Fraud	1
51	Property	Destruction of property	62
52	Property	Endangering	2
59	Misc	Drug supply	3
61	Misc	Trespass	3
63	Misc	Animals	1
68	Misc	Arms act offences	22
71	Misc	Against justice	42
73	Misc	Immigration	2
77	Misc	Justice (special)	3
79	Misc	Justice (special)	15
93	Misc	Justice (special)	1
96	Misc	Justice (special)	1
97	Misc	Justice (special)	2
98	Misc	Justice (special)	5
99	Misc	Justice (special)	5
A1	Traffic	Driving with excess Alcohol	9
A3	Traffic	Driving with excess Alcohol	54
A5	Traffic	Driving with excess Alcohol	120
D1	Traffic	Driving dangerously/carelessly	3
D2	Traffic	Driving dangerously/carelessly	14
D5	Traffic	Driving dangerously/carelessly	4
L2	Traffic	Driving while disqualified	216