- guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 October 2007 13.54 BST
A total of 83 such criminals were charged with a further serious offence while under the supervision of the probation service and other agencies, compared with 61 in 2005/06.
Twelve of those crimes were carried out by offenders among the 1,249 assessed as the "critical few" with the highest risk of harming the public, and supposedly under the most rigorous supervision.
The Ministry of Justice figures for England and Wales also showed the number of registered sex offenders who were charged or cautioned for breaching their notification requirements - such as keeping police informed when they moved house - rose 30% to 1,678.
In all, 12% of the offenders ranked in the medium and high-risk categories were either returned to prison for breach of licence or committed new crimes.
But the true figure of further offending by those subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements (Mappa) will be higher, as today's statistics do not include those at the lowest level of risk to the public.
There were 48,668 offenders under the Mappa scheme - a 2% rise on last year - including 30,416 people on the sex offenders register.
The justice minister Maria Eagle said: "Protecting the public is of paramount importance to the government.
"We have one of the most advanced systems in the world for monitoring and managing dangerous offenders. Mappa protects the public by providing robust communication and sharing of information between all responsible authorities, but we are not complacent and continue to look for ways to improve how we manage these offenders, and how best to support those responsible for the task locally."
