Prisoners' Release

(asked on 4th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will estimate the average cost of a recall to prison for (a) an adult woman, (b) a young person and (c) an adult man who has been sentenced to a tariff lower than or equal to (i) 6, (ii) 12, (iii) 18 and (iv) 24 months.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 10th November 2020

The length of time which an offender will spend in custody following recall will depend on whether it is a fixed-term or standard recall and on the length of sentence which the offender is serving. Therefore, it is possible to provide only the average annual cost of holding a prisoner, including a recalled prisoner, in custody. The table below sets out that average cost, for the year 2019-20; a more detailed breakdown of costs can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-performance-statistics-2019-to-2020

Function

Cost per Prisoner per Year

Male category B Trainer

£29,013

Male category C Trainer

£23,975

Male dispersal

£47,974

Female closed

£34,736

Female local

£44,476

Female open

£39,199

Male closed YOI (ages 18-21)

£50,915

Male YOI young people (ages 15-17)

£92,158

Male local

£30,532

Male open

£21,458

All prisons

£28,974

The table below sets out the number of recalls over the last five years broken down by sentence length of less than 12 months and 12 months or more as recorded on our data management system. A more detailed breakdown of sentence length is not available.

Number of Recalls by gender, sentence length and age

Recall Year

Sentence Length

Adult Male

Adult Female

Young People

2015

Less than 12 months

4,554

434

12 months or more

15,727

721

31

2016

Less than 12 months

7,091

726

1

12 months or more

13,069

652

20

2017

Less than 12 months

7,839

986

12 months or more

12,417

665

7

2018

Less than 12 months

7,933

1,044

12 months or more

14,385

880

26

2019

Less than 12 months

7,927

1,097

12 months or more

16,395

1,060

24

Table notes:

  • Recalls of those sentenced to less than 12 months imprisonment began from February 2015.
  • An adult is an offender who was 18 years old or more at the time of the recall
  • The figures detailed in the answer have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Public protection is our priority. Offenders on licence are subject to strict licence conditions and supervision. When an offender breaches a condition of their licence the Probation Service will undertake a thorough risk assessment to determine whether it is necessary, for the protection of the public, to recall that offender to prison.

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