Prisoners' Release
(asked on 9th September 2014) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners sentenced for what offence have been released from prison in error while (a) being held on remand and (b) serving a custodial sentence in each of the last five years; and what the nature of the error was in each case.
Releases in error are taken very seriously and action has been taken to tighten processes associated with this area of performance. Incidents are infrequent and all are subject to investigation.
The number of prisoners released in error from prison in each of the last five financial years is set out in the three tables below. Table 1 records this information by offence type; table 2 by legal status; and table 3 records the nature of the error.
Table 1: Releases in error, 2009/10 to 2013/14 by offence |
|
|
|
| |
Offence Type | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 |
Burglary | 11 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 9 |
Drugs Offences | 7 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 3 |
Fraud And Forgery | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Motoring Offences | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Not Known | 8 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 17 |
Other | 8 | 14 | 14 | 6 | 12 |
Robbery | 3 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 1 |
Sexual Offences | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Theft And Handling | 10 | 13 | 7 | 4 | 6 |
Violence Against The Person | 14 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 2 |
Table 2: Releases in error, 2009/10 to 2013/14, by legal status |
|
|
| ||
Legal status | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 |
Remand | 14 | 10 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
Sentenced | 28 | 38 | 34 | 24 | 25 |
Unknown/Not recorded | 26 | 12 | 4 | 16 | 15 |
Note: does not include persons released in error who were held in custody as a detainee, civil or other prisoner. | |||||
Table 3: Releases in error, 2009/10 to 2013/14, by nature of error |
|
|
| ||
Reason | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 |
Adjudication Award Not Processed | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
Bail Condition Not Applied | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Calculation Error | 3 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 9 |
Early Release | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Error At Court | 3 | 7 | 1 | 11 | 5 |
Identity Issue | 4 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
Incorrect Documentation | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
Licence Recall | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Misapplication Of Policy | 12 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Misfiled Warrant | 10 | 15 | 5 | 4 | 10 |
Paperwork Error | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Recall Issue | 10 | 17 | 13 | 8 | 7 |
Remand Issue | 4 | 9 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
Unclear | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Unresolved Immigration Issues | 1 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 8 |
Fail To Appear Warrant Overlooked | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Release Condition Not Met | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Outstanding Absconder | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Unknown/Not Recorded/Under Investigation | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
This data has been drawn from live incident files and is accurate on 30 September 2014. It is, however, subject to variance due to the nature of the live reporting system.
Information on the number of prisoners, their offence(s) and period of sentence left to serve at the point at which they were released from prison in error that (a) have and (b) have not been returned to custody in each of the last five years is not readily available. In order to obtain this information, manual interrogation of the prisoners’ records and of a central administrative system would need to be carried out. This could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.