Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners are unlawfully at large having escaped or absconded between 1 June 2010 and the most recent date for which information is available; and of what offence those prisoners had been convicted.

Offenders who escape or abscond are an extremely small proportion of the almost 86,000 offenders in the prison system at the moment. The number of escapes from custody has been falling since 1995 when central records began, despite an increasing prison population. Absconds have reached record lows under this Government, falling by more than 80 per cent in the last 10 years, but we have not been complacent and have made major changes to tighten the system.

The table below shows the offence details of 17 offenders who remain unlawfully at large having escaped or absconded between 1 June 2010 and 31 March 2014. The offence is that recorded at the time of the escape. The table does not includes escapes from escorts conducted under the Prison Escort and Custody Services contract where the prisoner had not previously been received into NOMS’ custody and absconds from NOMS’ run immigration removal centres.

Table 1: Offence details of offenders who escaped or absconded between 1 June 2010 and 31 March 2014 and who remain unlawfully at large:

Figures for the number of escapes since 1995 are provided in the Prison Digest contained in the Prison and Probation Trusts Performance Statistics. This can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-and-probation-trusts-performance-statistics-201314