Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many absconds have taken place from open prisons by people who were eligible for parole at the time, in each of the past five years.

Absconds from prison have more than halved since 2010 and are extremely rare. All open prisons now have local Abscond Reduction Strategies in place to ensure that the risk of abscond is minimised and to share good practice around the Open Prison Estate.

Open prisons hold only prisoners who have been formally assessed as being suitable to hold in conditions of lower security. Following a decision by the Deputy Prime Minister last year, when it comes to the Parole Board recommending that indeterminate sentence prisoners be transferred to open conditions, there will now be greater Ministerial scrutiny.

Public protection is our top priority. When a prisoner absconds, the Police are immediately notified and are responsible for locating the offender. The majority of absconders are quickly recaptured and returned to custody.

This table shows the number of absconds for prisoners who were eligible for parole at the time they absconded.

Data has been drawn from large-scale IT systems and as with all such systems, is subject to errors with data entry and processing.