4.3 Major Offence

The majority of imprisoned offenders receive their sentence for more than one offence or conviction. Typical also is a disparate mixture of offences such as driving, dishonesty and violence (the average number of separate “sentences” per inmate relating to the current term of imprisonment was six).

For the purposes of analysis, including this census, offence type for a sentence is frequently reduced to simply the “most serious offence”(1) . Using this convention, violent offending was the most common cause of imprisonment. Thirty-six percent of (sentenced) inmates were in prison for offences broadly classified as violent. Almost a quarter of male inmates were imprisoned for a sex offence, compared to only 3.4 percent of female inmates. In proportionate terms, females were more likely to be imprisoned for property and drugs offences than their male counterparts.

Table 4-3 Major offence of sentenced inmates

1 Offence classifications are derived from Police codes and classifications; where there is more than one offence, “most serious offence” ranking is made using Ministry of Justice “seriousness of offence scale”. For more on this see section 15.11 Offence categories.