Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners who escaped or absconded from prison in the last year for which figures are available had previously escaped or absconded from prison.

In March, we announced a package of measures to ensure that the public was properly protected. Absconds and escapes have reached record lows under this Government, but we take each incident seriously. As a result of a comprehensive review, we have made major changes to tighten the eligibility for open prisons. Prisoners may no longer be transferred to open conditions or allowed out on temporary release if they have previously absconded, escaped, attempted to escape, or if they have failed to return or have re-offended whilst released on temporary licence, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

The change in policy for eligibility for open conditions was not applied retrospectively: the majority of these offenders who were already in open conditions were allowed to remain. However, any prisoners who were assessed to present an unacceptable risk in such conditions in light of their previous non-compliance were returned to closed prisons.

Progression to open prison is never automatic. All prisoners undergo regular, mandatory assessment of their risk of escape or abscond and risk of harm to the public. Only those who are assessed as having an acceptable level of risk for conditions of lower security can be allocated to open prison.

As at 31 March 2014, there were no prisoners held in open prisons who had absconded or escaped on more than one occasion between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2014.

There were 13 prisoners who, in the year ending 31 March 2014, either escaped or absconded from prison, having previously done so between 1 April 2010 and 31 March 2014.

Data on escapes and absconds, prior to 1 April 2010 could not be obtained except at disproportionate cost due to changes in recording practice.

As part of business as usual, open prisons return prisoners to closed conditions where they judge that they can no longer be managed safely in open conditions. Figures for this ongoing process are not included here.

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.