Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners convicted of (a) rape and (b) other sexual offences were held in a category D open prison as of 18 February 2022.

As of 31 December 2021 (latest available data), the number of prisoners in category D prisons convicted of rape and other sexual offences were 403 and 303 respectively[1].

A life or other indeterminate sentence prisoner is generally moved to open conditions only in response to a recommendation from the independent Parole Board, which conducts a full and thorough risk assessment. Following a decision by the Deputy Prime Minister last year, there will now be greater scrutiny of Parole Board recommendations on open prison moves. The Deputy Prime Minister will oversee the decisions in the most high-risk cases personally.

A determinate sentence prisoner is moved to open conditions only after a thorough risk assessment by Prison Service staff.

A prisoner who absconds from open conditions is ineligible to return to open conditions for two years following the abscond.

Where a prisoner’s behaviour deteriorates or risk escalates, they will be returned to closed conditions.

[1] These figures 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.