Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners serving custodial sentences for serious violent and sexual assaults were held in open prisons on 1 May (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012, (d) 2013 and (e) 2014.

Open prisons have been used since 1936, because they are the most effective means of ensuring that prisoners are suitably risk-assessed before they are released into the community under appropriate licence conditions. These prisons also provide effective supervision for prisoners who do not require the security conditions of the closed estate, because they have been assessed as having a low risk of harm to the public and a low risk of absconding by the independent Parole Board and/or NOMS.

Indeterminate sentence prisoners located in open conditions have been risk assessed and categorised as being of a low enough risk to the public to warrant their placement in an open prison. They will have previously spent time in prisons with higher levels of security, before being transferred to open conditions if recommended by the Parole Board - or directed through NOMS.

The main purpose of open conditions is to test prisoners in conditions more similar to those that they will face in the community. Time spent in open prisons affords prisoners the opportunity to find work, re-establish family ties, reintegrate into the community and ensure housing needs are met. For many prisoners who have spent a considerable amount of time in custody; these can assist in their successful reintegration in the community and protecting the public. To release these prisoners directly from a closed prison without the resettlement benefits of the open estate could lead to higher levels of post-release re-offending. The re-offending rates of those released from open prisons are low when compared to all prisoners released from custody in England and Wales.