Prison Sentences
(asked on 24th March 2025) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people serving imprisonment for public protection sentences were in Category (a) B, (b) C and (c) D prisons as of 31 December 2024.
Table 1 shows the number of prisoners serving Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences(1) held in predominant function Category B, C and D establishments(2), in England and Wales, as at 31 December 2024.
Prison Category(2) | Number of IPP Prisoners(1) |
Category B | 252 |
Category C | 1,737 |
Category D (Open) | 196 |
Notes:
1.The figures presented in these tables include both unreleased and recalled IPP prisoners.
2. A number of prisons have multiple functions (e.g. a prison could have both "Reception" and "Category C" functions). For these prisons, the predominant function has been used.
3. For more information see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prisons-and-their-resettlement-providers.
4. Data sources and quality: The figures in these tables 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. Source: Prison NOMIS.
It is right that the IPP sentence was abolished, and this Government is determined that those serving the sentence get all the support and opportunities they need to make further progress towards a safe and sustainable release, but not in a way that impacts public protection.
On 15 November 2024, the Government published the updated IPP Action Plan, which puts a stronger emphasis on effective frontline delivery in our prisons. It will ensure that prisoners serving IPP sentences have robust and effective sentence plans, which they are actively engaging with, and that they are in the correct prison to access the right interventions and rehabilitative services.
The IPP Action Plan and the commitment to deliver it have contributed to the overall reduction in the IPP population. The unreleased prison population fell from 1,227 in December 2023, to 1,045 in December 2024.
The Government also acted swiftly to commence the IPP measures in the Victims and Prisoners Act, which led to the automatic termination of licence for 1,742 cases on 1 November 2024. We also commenced the new power to re-release recalled IPP offenders executively through Risk Assessed Recall Review (RARR).