How many arrests for online communication offences in England lead to charges being filed?

1. How many arrests are we talking about — the raw figures

Investigations drawing on custody data obtained by The Times put the scale of arrests for communications offences at roughly 12,000 people in 2023 across participating forces, a figure cited in Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net country report and amplified in several media summaries ^{[1] [4]}. The Times’ dataset covered custody data from most but not all territorial forces, and other outlets reported similar ballpark figures — about 30 arrests per day when averaged — which has driven recent public attention ^{[1] [5]}.

2. The conversion from arrest to charge: a steep drop-off

While arrests numbered in the thousands, the conversion to prosecutions or sentences is disproportionately low: Freedom House’s summary of the reporting highlights that in 2023 “less than one‑tenth of arrests resulted in sentencing,” directly signaling that most arrests do not culminate in punishments under these communications statutes ^[1]. Multiple news fact checks and legal commentators corroborate that “most arrests didn’t lead to a prosecution” and that convictions and sentencings for these offences have fallen dramatically over the past decade ^{[6] [7]}.

3. Why so few charges? Legal thresholds and prosecutorial discretion

The Crown Prosecution Service guidance makes clear that charging decisions for communications offences involve high thresholds and careful legal tests — prosecutors must apply the Full Code Test or set out why the “grossly offensive” threshold is met, and ensure appropriate charge selection among overlapping offences ^[3]. Commentators have pointed out that Article 10 ECHR protections mean that merely offensive speech is often protected, and prosecutors must therefore discriminate between harmful criminality and protected expression, reducing the number of cases that progress from arrest to charge ^[5].

4. Data complications: overlapping offences and inconsistent recording

Parliamentary debate and police statements stress that custody figures for section 127 and section 1 are not tidy measures of “online comment” alone: arrests recorded under these sections frequently overlap with harassment, sexual offending, hate crime, or domestic-abuse-related offences, and forces differ in how they record incidents — all of which complicates any straight arrest-to-charge calculation ^{[2] [7]}. The Times’ custody analysis itself omitted some forces and relied on varying local recording practices, meaning headline arrest totals are not a simple national accounting of prosecutions-ready cases ^[7].

5. Alternative interpretations and political framing

Advocates for civil liberties and some media argue the high arrest numbers reveal overreach and a chilling effect on speech, while police and victim‑support voices point to arrests as necessary steps in investigating threats, harassment and serious abuse that sometimes use communication channels ^{[2] [6]}. The data — many arrests, few prosecutions — can be marshalled by both sides: critics use the raw arrest totals to argue for reform, defenders point to low charge rates and CPS thresholds as evidence that safeguards are functioning.

6. Bottom line: the best-supported answer to the question

Available reporting shows that although around 12,000 people were arrested in 2023 under the two communications statutes referenced in the media, fewer than one in ten of those arrests led to sentencing, and many arrests never became prosecutions due to legal thresholds, overlapping offences and recording inconsistencies ^{[1] [3] [2]}. The precise arrest→charge conversion rate cannot be nailed down more tightly from the sources provided, because the custody data and parliamentary analysis emphasize overlap and variable recording across forces ^{[7] [2]}.