Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the total number of women who have been in prison over the last two decades.

This information is not held centrally and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

However, the total first receptions for female offenders in each of the years in the last two decades can be found in the attached tables. Please refer to ‘female first receptions’ in Tables A2.1i (2015 to 2017) and A2.1ii (1993 to 2014).

The definition for first reception is a unique individual first received into prison custody from court for a particular set of offences committed. This gives the best indication of the number of new prisoners in the reporting period.