Prisoners' Release

(asked on 9th May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners serving an indeterminate public protection sentence were (a) released on licence and (b) subsequently recalled to prison in each of the last five years.


Answered by
Robert Buckland Portrait
Robert Buckland
This question was answered on 17th May 2019

It is for the independent Parole Board to review the detention of those prisoners serving an IPP sentence who have completed their tariff period. The Board will direct the release of these prisoners only if it is satisfied that the levels of risk posed to the general public are reduced enough that the National Probation Service and its partner agencies can safely manage them in the community under supervision.

Whilst HM Prison and Probation Service is focused on giving all prisoners serving IPP sentences opportunities to progress towards release, public protection must remain our priority.

The information you ask for is available in the public domain; however, I have provided it below for ease of reference.

The following table provides the number of first releases from IPP sentences in each of the last 5 years:

2014

2015[1]

2016

2017

2018

Releases

419

562

576

616

506

[1] Due to improvements in IT systems, the 2015 prison admissions data is now taken from a different source and, for statistical reporting purposes only, are produced using a different method. The 2015 figures from both the old and new systems have been presented to aid comparison.

The following table provides the number of offenders recalled from IPP licences in each of the last 5 years. It should be noted that these are incidences of recall and that offenders may appear more than once if they have been recalled on multiple occasions. It should also be noted that the recall and release numbers in each corresponding year do not necessarily relate to the same individuals.

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

Recalls

96[2]

363

482

492

637

2 Published data for IPP recalls was not collated separately to other types of indeterminate sentence prior to September 2014, and so can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The following table shows the population of prisoners serving IPP sentences who have never been released as at the end of March each year since 2012:

31 March 2012

31 Mar 2013

31 Mar 2014

31 Mar 2015

31 Mar 2016

31 Mar 2017

31 Mar 2018

31 March 2019

6,017

5,809

5,206

4,756

4,133

3,528

2,884

2,403

As with any large-scale recording system, administrative IT systems are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

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