The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has begun to publish online maps providing local breakdowns of reoffending in England and Wales. They are on the Making Sense of Criminal Justice website, which provides details of sentences handed down by local courts, reoffending rates in localities, and the ability to make comparisons with national trends.

The move is part of the government's initiative to publish official statistics on local reoffending rates, along with data for individual prisons and probation trust areas. The site also makes it possible to search for sentencing data from local courts.

It also provides information on reoffending rates for individual prisons and the number and type of sentences handed down for different offences in courts within each police force area. Lord McNally, the minister responsible for increasing the transparency and availability of MoJ information, said:

"Making more information available in a way that is relevant to local communities is central to the government's commitment to being open and accountable. But it's no good just publishing pages of data. We need to make sure we present it in a way that's easy to understand."

"That's why the Making Sense of Criminal Justice website, which includes new maps and myth busters, is such an important step forward. It will really help people to see reoffending levels in their area and give them the knowledge and, therefore, the power to hold local services to account."

The reoffending statistics are based on a new standardised measure for the relevant data. The latest reoffending data is for 2009, while the sentencing information covers the years between 2005-10.