Prisoners' Release
(asked on 21st July 2014) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people sentenced to life for murder in each year since 2004 were released from prison at the time of the minimum period imposed by the courts.
A life sentence is mandatory on conviction for murder. Under a life sentence, the court determines the minimum period to be served in prison for the purposes of punishment and deterrence. Once that period has been served it is for the Parole Board to determine if and when the offender may be released from prison on life licence and subject to recall for the rest of their life. Public protection is the priority and the Board will take into account a range of factors when assessing whether an offender’s risk is reduced sufficiently for him or her to be released.
In order to provide data relating to released life sentenced offenders in each year since 2004 would involve manually examining prisoner records.
Reliable centrally held electronic information on life sentenced prisoners released from custody is only available from 2011 onwards. Prior to this date the required individual record information was only kept in paper files for offender management purposes. It would therefore be at a disproportionate cost to search through these files to identify those prisoners sentenced for murder who were released after serving a minimum period of imprisonment imposed by the courts prior to 2011.
The latest available information on the number of released life sentenced offenders is publicly available under “Offender Management” at the following website address: