• This claim centres on confusion between two different statistical measures – further offences and the reoffending rate.
  • A “further offence” is any crime committed by someone with a previous criminal record. The reoffending rate is the proportion of prior offenders who go on to commit a further offence (within certain parameters).
  • According to the recent figures from the DoJ, covering 2023-24, the proportion of all crimes in that year that were further offences was 73.5%.
  • However, the claim mistakenly attributes those further offence figures to be the reoffending rate. The most recent reoffending rate in Northern Ireland is 17.6% (note that the reoffending rate is measured within a specified timeframe – in NI, this is one year following disposal of the prior conviction).

In a 3 July post on social media, the Ulster Unionist Party quote MLA Doug Beattie saying:

“Re-offending rates in Northern Ireland have gone from 70% in 2016 to around 74% in 2024; this is hardly a ringing endorsement of our rehabilitation programme.”

A press release published on the same day discusses this in more detail:

“Initially, the level of first-time offending in Northern Ireland, sitting at 26.5%, is encouraging. However, this needs to be placed in context, which means 73.5% of all offences committed that year were repeat offenders; that should set the alarm bell ringing… This raises several questions; is rehabilitation working if we are still seeing a reoffending rate of over 70%.”

This isn’t correct.

Mr Beattie has confused two separate things:

  • The proportion of crimes within a year that were committed by people with a pre-existing criminal record (known as “further offences”)
  • The proportion of previous offenders who have gone on to commit further offences (the “reoffending rate” over a set period)

These are distinct concepts that tell us different things about crime and justice in Northern Ireland.

The claim quotes figures that describe the proportion of all crimes in a given year that were committed by someone with a previous record – i.e. the proportion of all crimes that were further offences, as opposed to first-time offences.

This was 69.6% in 2015-16, 70.2% in 2016-17, and 73.5% in 2023-24 – matching the figures quoted by the UUP MLA.

The reoffending rate describes the proportion of all previous offenders who go on to commit another offence. This is often set within a specific timeframe following disposal of the remedy for the prior conviction.

In Northern Ireland, the official measure for reoffending considers the 12-month period after disposal, and the most up-to-date reoffending rate is 17.6%, which is considerably lower than the 74% asserted by Mr Beattie.

Ultimately, however, this claim centres on the misreading of one specific statistic. For more information, read on.

  • Source

FactCheckNI asked Mr Beattie where he got the information to support his claim. He pointed us to a 26 June report from the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).

First Time Entrants to the Criminal Justice System in Northern Ireland 2023/24, which outlines some data about new offenders recorded in the NI justice system in the 2023-24 financial year.

  • First-time offences

The DoJ/NISRA publication states that:

“In 2023-24, a total of 29,666 (first and further) offences were recorded as dealt with by conviction or diversion in the criminal justice system in Northern Ireland…

“Of total offences, 7,871 (26.5%) were first and 21,795 (73.5%) were further offences … the number of first offences equates directly to the number of first-time entrants to the justice system. The number of first-time entrants (first offences) in 2023-24 therefore was 7,871 (26.5% of all offences), an increase of 0.7 percentage points on the previous year (7,624 first offences; 25.8% of all offences).”

The report also outlines the percentage of all crimes that were first-time offences in each year between 2014-15 and 2023-24.

Figure 1 – source: DoJ/NISRA

It is correct that around 73.5% of all offences in the most recent year for which there is data were committed by people with a pre-existing criminal record (i.e. further offences). It is also correct that the equivalent figure in 2016 was around 70%.

Both of these reflect the percentages quoted by Mr Beattie. However, these do not – as the UUP MLA claimed – measure the “reoffending rate”.

  • First-time offences are crimes committed by someone with no previous criminal record. 
  • Further offences are crimes committed by someone who does have a criminal record. All crimes are either a first-time offence or a further offence (it is impossible to be both).

The reoffending rate is the proportion of people with a (recent) criminal record who go on to commit any other offences (within a given time frame).

  • Reoffending in Northern Ireland

The most recent data on reoffending rates within NI comes from the DoJ in a report published in October 2024.

Adult and Youth Reoffending In Northern Ireland (2021/22 Cohort) states that, of the 19,196 people “who received a non-custodial disposal at court, a diversionary disposal or who were released from custody during 2021/22 within Northern Ireland”, 3,386 (17.6%) reoffended during the one year observational period (adults 17.4%, youths 23.5%).

The reoffending rate of 17.6% is nowhere near the percentage of 73.5% as contained within the claim (although, as outlined above, this is based on some confusion about what distinct statistics actually measure).

However, it’s also worth noting that 65.3% of the entire cohort had committed previous offences at some point in time (ranging from one to 488 total offences) – including 67.0% of adults and 28.2% of the youths.

One-year reoffending rates also differ significantly depending on the type of punishment for the prior offence. The one year proven reoffending rate for:

  • Custody releases was 45.4% (adults 45.3%, 4 out of 5 youths)
  • Community disposal (supervision) was 28.6% (adults 27.9%, youths 39.4%)
  • Community disposal (no supervision) was 17.1% (adults 17.0%, youths 34.3%)
  • Diversionary disposal was 15.7% (adults 13.8%, youths 22.9%)
  • Trends over time

One-year reoffending rates have not changed significantly over the past decade or so.

The 17.9% figure for 2021-22 represented a 1.2 percentage point decrease on 2020-21 (note that both these years were during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have had some impact). Between 2010-11 and the most recent year, the reoffending rate fluctuated between 16.5% and 19.0%.

However, the overall size of the cohort in each year has broadly reduced considerably, albeit with a significant upwards jump between 2020-21 and 2021-22 – “closer to pre-Covid levels”, according to the DoJ. These trends are illustrated in the following graph:

Figure 2 – source: DoJ/NISRA

  • One year?

Why are official reoffending rates only focused on the first year after disposal or release?

According to the DoJ’s Northern Ireland Reoffending Methodology: Methodology and Glossary Part 1, reoffending rates (sometimes known as recidivism) is defined as “[T]he percentage of offenders in a given financial year who commit a proven reoffence, within one year of their date of discharge from custody, receipt of non-custodial disposal or diversionary disposal.”

DoJ says is calculated in this way and over this timeframe for three main reasons:

  • It is more timely than some other options (such as reconviction rates over a two-year period).
  • The differences between reoffending (over one year) and reconviction (over two years) is not substantial.
  • This is in line with established methodology used in England and Wales.

This choice of methodology is not perfect. According to the DoJ:

“As with most measures of recidivism, the one year proven reoffending rate is likely to be an under-estimation of true reoffending and should therefore be regarded as only an indicator of such behaviours.”

On the other hand, looking at reoffending within one year does also increase the likelihood that further offences reveal a certain continuity to an individual’s behaviour (compared with, say, a person who commits a second offence a decade after their first). Note that, within the latest annual figures on reoffending, of those who reoffended, 44.8% committed their first reoffence within the first three months (adults 44.7%, youths 46.5%).