Imagine your car breaks down. You take it to a mechanic. They fix it. A few weeks later, it breaks down. You return. They fix it again. Then it happens again, and again, and again… Would you take your car back for the 16th time and expect a different result?
It sounds like a ridiculous comparison, but perhaps this is the way we address, or don't address, persistent offending — and have for some time.
In 2010, the National Audit Office reported that people on short prison sentences had an average of 16 previous convictions. In 2016, then Prime Minister David Cameron said, "the average prisoner has 16 previous convictions." Still in 2026, statistics show that 35% of adults convicted of an indictable offence in 2025 already had 15 or more previous cautions or convictions. That's more than one in three.
With 15 or more convictions a person is referred to as having a "long criminal career." However a long criminal career represents something else too: repeated encounters with the criminal justice system, and therefore repeated opportunities to intervene.
First encounter. Second. Fifth. Tenth. Fifteenth. By then, shouldn't we know more? What is behind the offending? What did we try previously? Did they engage? Did it work? If it didn't, what are we doing differently this time?
Are we repairing the underlying problem or resetting the warning light?
For the low-level "summary non-motoring" offences dealt with in magistrates' courts, around 85% result in merely a fine. A fine may be entirely appropriate. Punishment matters and offending should have consequences. But what does a fine address?
- If someone shoplifts because of addiction, does a fine address the addiction?
- If someone repeatedly offends while homeless, does it address their housing?
- If offending is connected to debt, does adding another financial liability address what is driving the behaviour?
Perhaps none of these factors applies. Perhaps punishment alone is entirely appropriate. But shouldn't we at least have attempted an intervention? Are 85% of cases most effectively addressed by a monetary penalty, or is this just the easiest to impose?
Every encounter with the criminal justice system is also an opportunity to understand why someone is there and whether something could prevent the next offence. This isn't about removing personal responsibility. Some people will refuse help. Some won't complete interventions. Some will continue offending despite considerable efforts by police, probation, charities and others to support them.
There are two very different explanations for someone repeatedly returning to the criminal justice system:
"We identified what was driving your offending, repeatedly offered appropriate interventions, and you repeatedly chose not to engage."
"We repeatedly processed your offences and imposed punishments, but never successfully addressed what was causing you to keep coming back."
We need to know which applies.
Where is the service history?
If you took your car back to the same garage repeatedly, you'd expect the mechanic to know more each time. They'd have the service history. They'd know which parts had been replaced, which diagnostics had been run and what had already been tried. After repeated failures, you'd expect them to try something different.
Shouldn't our criminal justice system work in much the same way? If somebody appears for the second, fourth, eighth and twelfth time, we should know progressively more about them. What have we tried? What did they engage with? What did they refuse? What worked? What failed?
This is where effective Out of Court Resolutions, deferred prosecution and community sentences can be used more effectively to address root causes of offending. Used properly, they create opportunities to identify need, select appropriate interventions, set meaningful conditions, monitor completion and learn what actually changes behaviour.
And if someone comes back, we shouldn't start again from zero. We should have the equivalent of their service history. Maybe the mechanic correctly diagnosed the problem and the owner repeatedly refused the repair. If so, we should know that. But perhaps the mechanic repeatedly reset the warning light without successfully addressing the underlying fault. We should know that too.
So if your car ended up in the same garage for the 16th time, you wouldn't only ask: "What's wrong with this car?" You'd also ask: "What did the garage do the last 15 times?"
This assessment isn't a criticism of the people working within it — some of the most committed people I have met work with this revolving door of repeat offending behaviour. We need to address the system that they operate within.
Effective justice shouldn't just be whether we dealt with the last offence. It should also be how effectively we reduced the chances of the next one.
Sources
- Ministry of Justice — First Time Entrants and Offender Histories 2025 (published May 2026): 35% of adult offenders convicted of an indictable offence had 15 or more previous cautions or convictions.
- National Audit Office — Managing Offenders on Short Custodial Sentences (2010): short-sentenced prisoners had an average of 16 previous convictions.
- Prime Minister's Prison Reform Speech — David Cameron (2016): "70% of prisoners have at least 7 previous offences, and the average prisoner has 16 previous convictions."
- Sentencing Academy — Fines / Ministry of Justice sentencing data: 85% of summary non-motoring offences were dealt with by way of a fine in the year to September 2024.