Asked by: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the prison incarceration rates per capita are for (a) England and Wales and (b) other EU countries; and what the average cost of jailing a person per year is in (i) England and Wales and (ii) other EU countries.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The SPACE I report (last published in April 2017) covers incarceration rates for each member country of the Council of Europe: http://wp.unil.ch/space/files/2017/04/SPACE_I_2015_FinalReport_161215_REV170425.pdf
Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), routinely publishes average costs per prisoner and prison place, and overall prison unit costs of individual prisons for each private and public sector prison in England and Wales. The information can be accessed in the Prison and Probation Performance Statistics pages for each relevant financial year here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/563326/costs-per-place-cost-per-prisoner-2015-16.pdf. Prison unit costs can be found within the Excel document Costs per prison place and cost per prisoner by individual prison establishment in the ‘Cost by Establishment’ tab. The most recently published figures are for financial year 2015-16 and we expect to publish the 2016-17 data on 26 October 2017.
Asked by: Angus Brendan MacNeil (Independent - Na h-Eileanan an Iar)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much would be saved within his Department if prisoners in England and Wales were jailed at the EU average.
Answered by Phillip Lee
Sentencing is a matter for our independent courts, taking account of the offences and penalties set by Parliament. It is not possible to say what savings would be made by a reduction in the incarceration rate to the European average because of the varying impacts of different measures to reduce the rate of imprisonment.