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Fixed Penalties

Answer

Penalty notices for disorder (PNDs) rolled-out to all police forces in England and Wales under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001. Under the scheme, the police can issue a fixed penalty of £50 or £80 for a specified range of disorder offences including shop theft (under £200) and criminal damage (under £500).Data on the number of PND’s (penalty notice for disorder) issued for the specified offence for each month since November 2004 are provided in the tables. The data for 2006 is provisional. Finalised data for 2006 will be available this summer.The figures show that the PND has been an increasingly useful disposal option for the police in tackling low-level antisocial behaviour, providing them with a simple, non-bureaucratic financial punishment for first-time offenders.

Number of penalty notices for disorder issued to persons aged 16 and over for selected offences by month, November 2004 to December 2006¹,²
Offence		Total	January	February	March	April	May	June
Drunk and disorderly	2004	6,154	—	—	—	—	—	—
	2005	37,038	2,842	2,732	2,779	2,860	2,927	2,551
	2006¹	42,308	3,101	3,090	3,073	3,696	3,515	3,503
Criminal Damage (under £500)	2004	1,103	—	—	—	—	—	—
	2005	12,168	813	754	786	906	982	990
	2006¹	19,654	1,505	1,377	1,312	1,562	1,584	1,710
Theft (retail under £200)	2004	2,018	—	—	—	—	—	—
	2005	21,997	1,286	1,309	1,603	1,806	1,822	1,728
	2006¹	37,463	2,608	2,655	2,983	2,843	2,957	2,999
Depositing and leaving litter	2004	49	—	—	—	—	—	—
	2005	737	32	47	56	54	75	73
	2006¹	1,125	77	89	69	109	118	124

Offence		July	August	September	October	November	December
Drunk and disorderly	2004	—	—	—	—	2,504	3,650
	2005	3,092	2,969	2,822	3,400	3,296	4,768
	2006¹	3,481	3,441	3,545	3,753	3,304	4,806
Criminal Damage (under £500)	2004	—	—	—	—	452	651
	2005	1,158	1,158	1,052	1,193	1,093	1,283
	2006¹	1,746	1,919	1,806	1,778	1,579	1,776
Theft (retail under £200)	2004	—	—	—	—	872	1,146
	2005	1,700	1,746	2,005	2,048	2,432	2,512
	2006¹	2,722	3,148	3,346	3,498	3,873	3,831
Depositing and leaving litter	2004	—	—	—	—	19	30
	2005	60	53	63	71	66	87
	2006¹	87	77	108	104	87	76
¹ Data on PNDs issued in 2006 are unpublished and provisional
² Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

130816; 459 c1410-2W

Session

2006-07

Subjects

Fixed penalties

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk