Repeat offenders are committing up to 2,000 murders, rapes and other serious crimes a year, having completed a punishment for a previous crime.
By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor 11:36PM GMT 17 Mar 2011
The number of serious offences being carried out by reoffenders has increased by more than half in a decade, figures from the Ministry of Justice show.
Three in four of the criminals are committing a serious offence for the first time, suggesting a growing trend of violence among those who go straight back to crime.
The figures also showed that almost half of all prisoners return to offending within a year of being released.
Last year, it emerged that dangerous and violent criminals committed almost 200 serious further offences despite being under the supervision of the authorities.
The trend has emerged amid concerns that the planned reform of sentencing by Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, could see thousands of offenders receive softer sentences. One victims' campaigner called for longer jail terms and warned that the criminal justice system was playing "Russian roulette with people's lives".
The ministry's annual reoffending statistics show the number of criminals who have reoffended within a year of either leaving prison or completing a community punishment.
They show that 501 offences classed in the "most serious" categories were committed by those whose jail term or community order finished in the first three months of 2009. If the pattern continued for the rest of the year, the figure could rise to 2,000. The category includes murder, rape, child sex abuse, wounding and serious assaults.
The figure was a 54 per cent increase on the 326 committed by those who ended their sentence in the first quarter of 2000, and a seven per cent rise on the equivalent 470 in 2008.
One in four of the crimes related to serious sex and child sex offences, and for 75 per cent of all the offenders it was the first time they had been guilty of a serious offence. Lyn Costello, from Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, said: "This shows that rehabilitation has to be looked at seriously.
"These figures mean 501 new victims of crime and the fear is it is only going to get worse when we start sending fewer people to prison. We have to have sensible sentencing to ensure that when people are released they are not going to reoffend, and that means longer sentences. We are playing Russian roulette with people's lives."
Overall, some 79,547 new offences were committed by criminals who finished their sentence in the first three months of 2009. Of those who were released from prison, some 49 per cent went back to crime, while among all the offenders, 39 per cent reoffended. Both figures were down slightly on the previous year.
A report in November found that the majority of offenders never give up a life of crime despite punishment.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "The government is committed to more effective punishment and rehabilitation, so that the public is better protected from crime."
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