Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for which offences were prisoners in open prisons or open wings of closed prisons serving their sentence as at 1 January 2020.

Re categorisation to security category D and allocation to open prison is not a right or an automatic progression. Only prisoners who have been risk assessed as manageable in very low security conditions will be transferred to an open prison. In cases of life sentenced or indeterminate sentenced prisoners the Parole Board will make a recommendation as to suitability for open conditions.

The attached document shows a table of Sentenced prison population recorded as having a Category D individual-level security category as at 31 December 2019, England & Wales. This includes 'Female Open' and 'YOI Open' categorised prisoners. It should be noted that whilst the majority of these prisoners would be held in open conditions (either in open prisons, or on open wings within closed prisons) a number of these prisoners would be in non-open conditions while awaiting transfer to open conditions.