Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate she has made of the number of prisoners who have been imprisoned over 100 miles from their home in England in the last 12 months; and if she will make a statement.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) seeks to hold prisoners in the most appropriate security conditions, in prisons that are able to meet the need presented by their individual case, at each stage of their time in custody.

On 30 September 2016 there were 12,678 prisoners with a recorded origin address in England held in prisons over 100 miles from their home address. The home address can include an address to which offenders intend to return on discharge or next of kin address. If no address is given, an offender’s committal court address is used as a proxy for the area in which they are resident and these figures are included in the answer.

All data has been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.