Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of offenders on licence after fixed-term recall (a) re-offended and (b) breached their licence conditions and were recalled for a fixed term again in each of the last five years.
The only lawful basis for recalling an offender on licence to custody is by way of response to a breach of one or more licence conditions. In some cases, the breach of licence conditions will be associated with some alleged further offending. Whilst information about offenders who receive a further fixed term recall is held, to produce the proportion of those who had received more than one fixed term recall could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
Public protection is our priority. Offenders on licence are subject to strict licence conditions and supervision.
Where offenders are eligible for a fixed-term recall, they may be recalled to prison on a standard recall, which is the only type of recall available for those offenders ineligible for a fixed-term recall (such as those on a life licence). Where they receive a standard recall, they are liable to serve the rest of their sentence in prison.
The decision to recall is taken on the professional advice of senior probation staff.
From the data available, I can report that the following number of offenders were recalled multiple times in each year, on a fixed-term recall, on the same sentence. In each decision in every case, the probation officer will have established that the offender was eligible for a fixed-term recall and will have judged, based on the available evidence, that a fixed-term recall was the necessary and proportionate response to the breach of licence condition(s).
Year | Number of offenders |
2014 | 2606 |
2015 | 2644 |
2016 | 1387 |
2017 | 2258 |
2018 | 2362 |
**The figures in this table 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.