Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 20 April 2021 to Question 180635, how many prisoners serving a custodial sentence who were formerly members of the armed forces were sentenced for (a) violent crime and (b) non-violent crime.

The information requested is shown on the attached spreadsheets. These are broken down by offence group and prison service establishment.

The Ministry of Justice publishes a yearly snapshot which estimates the number of former service personnel in the prison population. This takes place in June each year.

Since 2015 all new prisoners coming into custody have been asked if they have a military background as part of the basic custody screening (BCS) interview. The attached data is therefore the percentage of sentenced prisoners within each offence group and prison for which we have a matched response to the BCS armed forces question. Those who entered prison prior to Jan 2015 (and are still in custody) will not have completed the BCS and so we will not have a matched response for these individuals.

Declaring one’s military background is not obligatory and there is anecdotal evidence that some offenders may be reluctant to disclose having served in the armed forces. The MoJ is focussed on increasing declaration rates amongst this important group.

We remain committed to ensuring that those who have served in the Armed Forces and who find themselves in the criminal justice system are able to access support, whether they are serving their sentence in custody or in the community. Through the Armed Forces Covenant Trust Fund, we have committed to support programmes worth £5.7 million targeted at former service personnel in the criminal justice system.