Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people received an extended determinate sentence with a custodial period of 10 years or more in each year since 2012; and of those, how many were aged (1) under 18, (2) 18 to 20, (3) 21 to 24, (4) 25 to 29, (5) 30 to 34, (6) 35 to 39, (7) 40 to 49, (8) 50 to 59, (9) 60 to 69, and (10) 70 or over, at the time of sentencing.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on detailed sentence and custodial sentence length, in England and Wales, for the years 2017 to 2021, available in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 21 MB).
In this dataset, the age range for offenders 25 and over was not broken down further prior to 2017 – please refer to note 5 in the tables. Further breakdowns by age range are therefore not available before 2017. Where data is provided for 2012 to 2017, the 25 + age range is aggregated.
The data requested is provided in the attached tables.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people aged 70 or over received an extended determinate sentence with a custodial period of 10 years or more in each year since 2012.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on detailed sentence and custodial sentence length, in England and Wales, for the years 2017 to 2021, available in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 21 MB).
In this dataset, the age range for offenders 25 and over was not broken down further prior to 2017 – please refer to note 5 in the tables. Further breakdowns by age range are therefore not available before 2017. Where data is provided for 2012 to 2017, the 25 + age range is aggregated.
The data requested is provided in the attached tables.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people aged 60 to 69 received an extended determinate sentence with a custodial period of 20 years or more in each year since 2012.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on detailed sentence and custodial sentence length, in England and Wales, for the years 2017 to 2021, available in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 21 MB).
In this dataset, the age range for offenders 25 and over was not broken down further prior to 2017 – please refer to note 5 in the tables. Further breakdowns by age range are therefore not available before 2017. Where data is provided for 2012 to 2017, the 25 + age range is aggregated.
The data requested is provided in the attached tables.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people aged 80 or over received a determinate custodial sentence of (1) 10 years to less than 15 years, (2) 15 years to less than 20 years, and (3) 20 years or more, in each year since 2012.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Responses are collated from two different data sources. Please refer to the footnotes of the tables to understand the differences.
HL1598 and HL1599:
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on detailed sentence and custodial sentence length, in England and Wales, for the years 2017 to 2021 available, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 21 MB).
In this dataset, the age range for offenders 25 and over was not broken down further prior to 2017 – please refer to note 5 in the tables. Further breakdowns by age range are therefore not available before 2017.
The data requested is provided in the attached tables. Please note that court data records length as the custodial period specified in the sentence.
HL1594 and HL1595:
Requested information can be found in the attached data tables.
The sentence length information is the Judicially Imposed Sentence Length (JISL) which reflects the custodial period plus time to be served on post-release Probation supervision.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people aged 70 to 79 received a determinate custodial sentence of 20 years or more in each year since 2012.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Responses are collated from two different data sources. Please refer to the footnotes of the tables to understand the differences.
HL1598 and HL1599:
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on detailed sentence and custodial sentence length, in England and Wales, for the years 2017 to 2021 available, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 21 MB).
In this dataset, the age range for offenders 25 and over was not broken down further prior to 2017 – please refer to note 5 in the tables. Further breakdowns by age range are therefore not available before 2017.
The data requested is provided in the attached tables. Please note that court data records length as the custodial period specified in the sentence.
HL1594 and HL1595:
Requested information can be found in the attached data tables.
The sentence length information is the Judicially Imposed Sentence Length (JISL) which reflects the custodial period plus time to be served on post-release Probation supervision.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people were serving a determinate sentence of 20 years or more in each year since 2012, broken down by ethnicity.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Responses are collated from two different data sources. Please refer to the footnotes of the tables to understand the differences.
HL1598 and HL1599:
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on detailed sentence and custodial sentence length, in England and Wales, for the years 2017 to 2021 available, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 21 MB).
In this dataset, the age range for offenders 25 and over was not broken down further prior to 2017 – please refer to note 5 in the tables. Further breakdowns by age range are therefore not available before 2017.
The data requested is provided in the attached tables. Please note that court data records length as the custodial period specified in the sentence.
HL1594 and HL1595:
Requested information can be found in the attached data tables.
The sentence length information is the Judicially Imposed Sentence Length (JISL) which reflects the custodial period plus time to be served on post-release Probation supervision.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people were serving a determinate sentence of 20 years or more in each year since 2012; and of those, how many were aged (1) under 18, (2) 18 to 20, (3) 21 to 24, (4) 25 to 29, (5) 30 to 34, (6) 35 to 39, (7) 40 to 49, (8) 50 to 59, (9) 60 to 69, and (10) 70 or over.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Responses are collated from two different data sources. Please refer to the footnotes of the tables to understand the differences.
HL1598 and HL1599:
The Ministry of Justice publishes information on detailed sentence and custodial sentence length, in England and Wales, for the years 2017 to 2021 available, in the Outcomes by Offence data tool (MS Excel Spreadsheet, 21 MB).
In this dataset, the age range for offenders 25 and over was not broken down further prior to 2017 – please refer to note 5 in the tables. Further breakdowns by age range are therefore not available before 2017.
The data requested is provided in the attached tables. Please note that court data records length as the custodial period specified in the sentence.
HL1594 and HL1595:
Requested information can be found in the attached data tables.
The sentence length information is the Judicially Imposed Sentence Length (JISL) which reflects the custodial period plus time to be served on post-release Probation supervision.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of cases that will fall into the “top tier” of highest risk offenders in each year, following their proposal in the Root and Branch Review of the Parole System, published on 30 March.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Alongside the Root and Branch Review, the government published historic release data for the top-tier cohort of parole cases. This can be found in the accompanying attachment.
The data shows the number of parole reviews completed for top-tier cases since 2016/17 broken down by offence type and how many of the completed reviews resulted in a release decision. This can be summarised as follows:
Year | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 |
Total completed reviews (top-tier cohort) | 2,014 | 2,043 | 1,851 | 1,777 | 1,975 |
Release decisions (top tier cohort) | 640 | 710 | 606 | 598 | 699 |
Total completed reviews (all cases) | 12,998 | 12,080 | 11,382 | 13,209 | 15,644 |
It is anticipated that release decisions in top-tier cases are the most likely cases to be caught by the new powers for ministerial oversight. The data illustrates that the new policies will apply to a small percentage of the Parole Board’s overall caseload.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many absconds have taken place from open prisons by people who were eligible for parole at the time, in each of the past five years.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Absconds from prison have more than halved since 2010 and are extremely rare. All open prisons now have local Abscond Reduction Strategies in place to ensure that the risk of abscond is minimised and to share good practice around the Open Prison Estate.
Open prisons hold only prisoners who have been formally assessed as being suitable to hold in conditions of lower security. Following a decision by the Deputy Prime Minister last year, when it comes to the Parole Board recommending that indeterminate sentence prisoners be transferred to open conditions, there will now be greater Ministerial scrutiny.
Public protection is our top priority. When a prisoner absconds, the Police are immediately notified and are responsible for locating the offender. The majority of absconders are quickly recaptured and returned to custody.
This table shows the number of absconds for prisoners who were eligible for parole at the time they absconded.
Financial year | Number of absconds |
2016-17 | 40 |
2017-18 | 34 |
2018-19 | 43 |
2019-20 | 32 |
2020-21 | 32 |
Data has been drawn from large-scale IT systems and as with all such systems, is subject to errors with data entry and processing.
Asked by: Lord Garnier (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which (1) professions, and (2) professional backgrounds, they consider to qualify as "law enforcement", following their proposal in the Root and Branch Review of the Parole System, published on 30 March.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Root and Branch Review proposes to increase the number of Parole Board members who have experience in ‘law enforcement’, and mandate that members with this experience sit on panels who review offenders in the ‘top-tier’ of cases. The scope of what is meant by "law enforcement" will encompass those from a police background but is also likely to include those who have worked in other law enforcement agencies.