Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the announcement on the 23 January 2021 that up to 500 new prison places will be built in existing women’s prisons, if his Department will publish the modelling used in the programme’s Strategic Case that the recruitment of an extra 20,000 police officers is expected to cause a temporary increase in the female prison population.
Our prison population projections published in November last year, show that the female prison population is projected to rise by around two-fifths by 2026 (1,300 women) with most of that rise coming in the next two years. Our projections took in to consideration the impact of the planned recruitment of a further 23,400 police officers – which is likely to increase charge volumes and future prison populations.
Our projections further assumed the future gender composition of the prison population will be broadly consistent with the pre-COVID 19 composition, although there is a fair degree of uncertainty here however particularly due to the additional police recruitment. As such we modelled a total of four scenarios which included a 20% higher/lower throughput from the Police and a fast court recovery scenario. Table 2.1 and 4.1 taken from our prison population projections, illustrate this below:
Table 2.1 below shows the two extra scenarios of a lower and a higher impact police scenario for both men and women.
| Central Scenario | Lower Police Scenario | Higher Police Scenario | Fast Court Recovery Scenario |
September 2020 | 79,235 | 79,235 | 79,235 | 79,235 |
September 2021 | 83,200 | 83,000 | 83,500 | 85,900 |
September 2022 | 88,100 | 87,200 | 89,100 | 88,600 |
September 2023 | 93,000 | 91,300 | 94,700 | 91,900 |
September 2024 | 96,000 | 93,800 | 98,300 | 94,900 |
September 2025 | 97,700 | 95,000 | 100,300 | 97,000 |
September 2026 | 98,700 | 95,900 | 101,600 | 98,400 |
All figures are rounded to the nearest hundred. Components may not sum due to rounding. |
Table 4.1 below shows the projections separately for children, females over 18 years and males over 18 specifically for the central scenario.
| Total | Children | Female 18+ | Male 18+ |
September 2020 | 79,235 | 395 | 3,217 | 75,623 |
September 2021 | 83,200 | 600 | 3,800 | 78,900 |
September 2022 | 88,100 | 600 | 4,100 | 83,500 |
September 2023 | 93,000 | 700 | 4,300 | 88,100 |
September 2024 | 96,000 | 700 | 4,400 | 90,900 |
September 2025 | 97,700 | 700 | 4,500 | 92,500 |
September 2026 | 98,700 | 700 | 4,500 | 93,500 |
All figures are rounded to the nearest hundred. Components may not sum due to rounding. |
Both tables are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/prison-population-projections-2020-to-2026
The business case has not yet reached a position where it could be published. We intend to continue dialogue with stakeholders as to how best to meet the needs of those women sentenced to a custodial sentence