Court fine defaulters reach record levels and made up 60% of all jail cases in 2015

Record jailing of fine defaulters drove the number of people sent to prison to their highest ever levels last year.

There were almost 10,000 cases of people being jailed for failing to pay court fines in 2015 – an almost four-fold increase on 2008 levels.

They accounted for nearly six out of 10 of the 17,200 prison committals in 2015, which comprised some 14,200 people — the highest number of people ever jailed.