Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effect of (a) resettlement day release and (b) overnight release on resettlement outcomes.

The latest information available shows that in the 12 months to September 2018 there were 340,163 incidences of resettlement day release involving 7,232 individuals, and 19,107 incidences of resettlement overnight release involving 4,955 individuals.

Data on release on temporary licence is published quarterly and can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2018

Resettlement day and overnight release are the most common forms of release on temporary licence (ROTL) and allow suitable, risk assessed prisoners to be released to undertake activities linked to the sentence plan that will ease their transition back to the community. There is promising international evidence to suggest that temporary release is associated with better post release employment outcomes, as well as lower re-arrest rates, return to custody rates, and re-imprisonment rates.

The MoJ published research in 2018 entitled ‘The reoffending impact of increased release of prisoners on temporary licence’ showed that for those given ROTL in the six month period leading up to release, increased use of it during this period was associated with reduced reoffending. After controlling for some other variables that might influence prisoner’s outcomes (such as demographic characteristics, offending history and prior ROTL failure)

- Each additional Resettlement Day Release was associated with 0.5% reduced odds of reoffending over a one-year follow-up period

- Each additional Resettlement Overnight Release was associated with 5% reduced odds of reoffending over a one-year follow-up period