Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 2 March 2015 to Question 214860, what the individual offences committed were in the violence against the person category referred to in the tables.

Absconds and escapes have reached record lows under this Government and temporary release (ROTL) failures have dropped over the past 12 months during which we have taken significant steps to strengthen the ROTL regime. Between July and September 2014 (the latest period for which data are available), there were a total of 61 recorded temporary release failures, 33% lower than the same quarter in 2013. In April-June 2014, there were 40% fewer failures compared to the previous year.

The table attached shows the number of prisoners with a principal offence of violence against the person who were in open prisons on 30 May 2014 and who had previously absconded, escaped or breached temporary release conditions, broken down by offence. The data in the table is derived from a one-off exercise to look in detail at those prisoners who were in open conditions on 30 May, which was conducted as part of the review of temporary release. It should be noted that the definition of “open prison” for the purposes of this exercise included some prisons operating both open and closed conditions on the same site to ensure that all prisoners with a previous abscond, escape or serious ROTL failure were identified and assessed. It is therefore possible that a number of prisoners included in the total were actually in closed conditions at the relevant time.

Temporary release and open conditions can be valuable tools in the resettlement of prisoners in the community but never at the expense of public safety. We conducted a fundamental review of the policy and practice of release on temporary licence (ROTL) after serious failures in 2013. We have already made significant changes, including the introduction in May 2014 of a ban on transfer to open prison or ROTL for any prisoner who escapes, abscond, fails to return from ROTL or commits an offence whilst on ROTL during their current sentence.

This change in policy for eligibility for open conditions was not applied retrospectively. However, any prisoners who were assessed to present an unacceptable risk in such conditions in light of their previous non-compliance were returned to closed prisons.