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<p><ins class="ministerial"></ins><ins class="ministerial"></ins></p><p><ins class="ministerial">
</ins></p><p><ins class="ministerial">This Government has taken action to end the
cautions culture and to make sure serious offenders do not receive penalties seen
as soft options. The use of cautions is at its lowest point for thirty years.</ins></p><p><ins
class="ministerial">We are changing the law to ban simple cautions for all of the
indictable only offences - the most serious criminal offences which must be tried
in the Crown Court, including rape, manslaughter and robbery. We are also banning
simple cautions for possession of a knife or offensive weapon, supplying Class A drugs
and a range of sexual offences against children. </ins></p><p><ins class="ministerial">Further,
we announced proposals in November 2014 for a new out of court disposal framework
that would see an end to cautions and warnings and would require offenders to take
actions to comply with their disposals. Elements of this new framework are being piloted
in Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and Leicestershire before a decision is taken on
whether to implement the new framework across England and Wales. </ins></p><p><ins
class="ministerial"> </ins></p><p><ins class="ministerial">The Ministry of Justice
issues guidance on the process to be followed by the police when they are administering
simple cautions for adult offenders. The latest guidance, issued in November 2013
following the Simple Cautions Review, states that the use of a simple caution for
indictable-only offences, such as rape, should only be given following authorisation
by a senior police officer of at least the rank of Superintendent and the Crown Prosecution
Service. These will be cases where there are exceptional circumstances which would
mean that it is not in the public interest to prosecute.</ins></p><p><ins class="ministerial">
Latest information on cautions issued by offence type is publicly available online
at the Ministry of Justice’s statistics portal. This data is contained in Q2.3 of
the Out of Court Disposals table: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-september-2014"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-september-2014</a></ins></p><p>
</p><p><del class="ministerial">Simple cautions are a non-statutory disposal available
to the police to dispose of any offence committed by an adult and designed for dealing
with low level, mainly first time offending. The Ministry of Justice issues guidance
on the process to be followed by the police and the CPS when they are administering
simple cautions for adult offenders. This guidance states that the use of a simple
caution for indictable only offences should only be given following authorisation
by the CPS. These will be cases where there were exceptional circumstances which would
mean that it was not in the public interest to prosecute.</del></p><p> </p><p><del
class="ministerial">Since 2007 the overall number of simple cautions issued has halved.
The cautioning rate, that is, the number of offenders cautioned as a percentage of
offenders who were either cautioned or convicted, in 2013 was 20 per cent; which has
declined from a peak of 31 per cent in 2007.</del></p>
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