Prisoners' Release
(asked on 2nd February 2015) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners were released from prison on a Friday in each of the most recent five years for which figures are available.
The information requested is shown in the table below in respect of releases from determinate sentences.
Number of releases from determinate sentences(1) on Fridays, 2010 to September 2014 | |||||
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 Q1-Q3 | |
All releases | 89,666 | 85,540 | 85,525 | 78,748 | 54,502 |
Of which were on a Friday | 30,813 | 29,877 | 30,397 | 27,557 | 19,527 |
1) Not inclusive of releases from remand or from indeterminate sentences. | |||||
Data Sources and Quality: The figures in these tables have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing
Prisoners are released either once they reach their automatic release date – that is, when they have a statutory entitlement to be released – or on a discretionary basis either by the Parole Board, the Secretary of State or by prison governors (if being released early on Home Detention Curfew (HDC)).
If a prisoner has an automatic release date that falls on a weekend or Bank Holiday, they are released on the Friday before. It would be unlawful to hold them beyond the date on which they have a statutory entitlement to be free, so for that reason they are released on the first working day immediately preceding their release date.
The exception to this is prisoners serving very short sentences – of less than 5 days – where there is specific statutory provision for them to be released on a Saturday if their release date falls on a weekend.