The Beginning - CJS Offence Index

So here it is! The CJS Offence Index - Sept 2023.

The first piece of reference data extracted from a HO spreadsheet and rendered in a more machine-consumable format i.e. json.

Hopefully the notes below, make it a bit more human-consumable too!

What is it?

This is a list of all the Offences defined in the UK’s Criminal Justice System. For each Offence, it includes:

  • the Offence’s code
  • a title
  • the description of the associated UK legislation
  • the associated Offence Category Code - indicates whether its a crime, enforcement or civil complaint. Each of these have there own subcategories.
  • a custodial indicator - representing whether the offence results in a custodial sentence.
  • a PNC indicator - representing whether the offence is recordable on the Police National Computer.
  • a DVLA code - this maps an Offence back to its equivalent in the DVLA Offence List.
  • a start date

Source

Published on the 21st of September 2023, the CJS Offence Index - Sept 2023 is the latest installment of the CJS Offence Index. You can find the original spreadsheet within the UK Government’s Criminal justice system: data standards forum guidance.

According to the definition in the CJS Data Standards Catalogue v6.0, this list is owned by the Police National Legal Database (PNLD).

Overview

A good quality dataset.

  • Possible missing data - no Offence Codes matching the XX00NNN format (see The Offence Code column below)
  • Good clear relationships.
  • Good column definitions - if you know where to look.
  • But very little guidance on the overall set of data.

Gotchas

  1. If you are wanting to import the original dataset yourself, there is some sort of export artifact hanging around at the end of the dataset - status="Success". Don’t import that - the last row of data is on row 14907.

The Offence Code column

This is unique across the dataset - it can be used as a good identifier.

An Offence Code has a defined structure. Its defined in the CJS Data Standards Catalogue v6.0 - in section 3.11.

There are 3 major formats:

  1. AAYYNNN - Where AA is a code that matches the legislative Act, YY is a 2 digit year of the Act and NNN is the Offence Reason in the Act.
  2. COMLNNN - for common law - where NNN is a number.
  3. XX00NNN - for indictments rather than charges - where NNN is a number.

Each of these formats can have an optional additional character on the end but not all do! This additional character tells us that the offence is either:

  • A - attempting
  • B - aiding and abetting
  • C - conspiring
  • I - inciting

Interestingly, there are no XX00NNN Offence Codes in the column at all!

Action taken: none - left as is.

Future work: May split out the Act code if I can find the appropriate reference data for that.

The Title column

Pretty standard text based column describing the Offence. There are some values with embedded HTML code - make sure you decode them when displaying. It is unique across the column’s values - no dupes.

Action taken: none - left as is.

The Legislation column

Text based column describing the legislation under which the Offence has occurred. There is duplication in this column. Also, not every Offence has a value in the Legislation column.

Action taken: none - left as is.

Future work: Maybe could be mapped to a reference table but its probably a long shot!

The Offence Category Code Column

Textual column with a limited value set. A Offence Category Code is well-defined. Its defined in the CJS Data Standards Catalogue v6.0 - in section 3.78.

Every Offence has a Offence Category Code - there are no blanks. Likewise there is at least 1 Offence for every Offence Category Code.

Action taken: none - left as is.

Future: Spin out the Offence Category Codes to their own reference table.

The Custodial Indicator column

Simply Y or N. Every Offence has a value - no blanks.

Action taken: none - left as is.

The Recordable on PNC Indicator column

Simply Y or N. Every Offence has a value - no blanks.

Action taken: none - left as is.

The DVLA Code column

A map between Offences as defined by the CJS and Motoring Offences as defined by the DVLA and Ministry of Transport.

As should be expected this is sparsely populated - few Offences are Motoring Offences.

All the defined DVLA Codes are represented in this column’s values.

Action taken: none - left as is.

Future: Although this steps out of the HO into the MoT, DVLA Offences deserve a reference table of their own. They are defined within an HTML page on a .gov.uk website.

The Offence Start Date column

This represents the date that the Offence came into effect. All Offences have a start date.

Action taken: converted to ISO-8601 at UTC.