A prisoner escapes London hospitals twice in a week, and somehow this doesn't feel surprising anymore. Because while we can't even keep criminals secure during medical visits, the latest government data shows Britain recorded 121,058 reoffences in 2024 alone.

That's not just a big number. It's a 61.9% surge from where we started measuring this properly back in 1933, when reoffending hit 74,766. We've spent nine decades building a justice system, and we're worse at preventing repeat crime than we were before the Second World War.

Think about what this means. Every one of those 121,058 reoffences represents someone the system already caught, processed, sentenced, and released. Someone who should have learned their lesson, been rehabilitated, or at least been deterred. Instead, they committed another crime serious enough to get caught again.

The hospital escape story crystallises the problem perfectly. If we can't manage basic security during a medical appointment, how are we supposed to tackle the complex work of actually stopping people from reoffending? The answer, according to the data, is that we're not.

This isn't about being tough or soft on crime. It's about competence. The reoffending rate has climbed steadily for decades, through different governments, different policies, different promises. Labour's rehabilitation programmes, Conservative tough-on-crime rhetoric, austerity cuts, increased spending. None of it worked.

Meanwhile, child abuse cases are becoming more complex to police, stretching resources that should be preventing people from committing their second, third, or fourth serious offence. Every reoffence represents not just another victim, but a failure of the entire criminal justice pipeline.

The 46,292 additional reoffences since 1933 translate to 46,292 more victims who shouldn't have been harmed, 46,292 more families affected, 46,292 more reasons to question whether our justice system actually works. That's more than the population of Hereford experiencing crime that could have been prevented.

You can trace this failure through every part of the system. Overcrowded prisons that warehouse rather than rehabilitate. Probation services cut to the bone. Mental health support that barely exists. A court system so backlogged that justice delayed becomes justice denied.

The prisoner who escaped those London hospitals will likely be caught, processed, and eventually released again. Based on these numbers, there's a decent chance we'll see them back in the system within a few years. That's not justice. That's just expensive recycling.

(Source: Ministry of Justice, Proven Reoffending -- proven-reoffending_jan24_mar24_3_monthly -- A7a_(3_monthly))