| answer text |
<p /> <p /> <p>A life sentence is mandatory for murder and discretionary life sentences
are available to Judges for other very serious offences. This Government has introduced
an automatic life sentence for a second very serious violent or sexual offence.</p><p>
</p><p>Under a life sentence, the court determines the minimum period to be served
in prison for the purposes of punishment and deterrence. Once that period has been
served it is for the Parole Board to determine if and when the offender may be released
from prison on life licence and subject to recall for the rest of their life.</p><p>
</p><p>Table 1 shows the number of offenders who have been sentenced to life in the
12 months ending September 2013 who previously had one or more previous life sentence
on a separate sentencing occasion within the last 10 years, in England and Wales.
The table also shows details of their latest and previous offences for which they
received a life sentence.</p><p> </p><p>The number of offenders who receive a second
life sentence is small. A number of life sentence prisoners commit offences in prison
which result in a second life sentence. Some life sentence prisoners can also receive
a second life sentence on conviction for offences committed prior to being imprisoned
(e.g. a previous murder or rape). Only one of the offenders shown in Table 1 had been
released from prison on life licence when he committed a further offence which resulted
in a second life sentence.</p><p> </p><p>The figures provided have been drawn from
an extract of the Police National Computer (PNC) data held by the Department. The
PNC holds details of all convictions and cautions given for recordable offences committed
in England and Wales. In addition, as with any large scale recording system the PNC
is subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.</p>
|
|
