I refer the hon. Gentleman to my answer of 4 June 2007, Official Report, columns 219-20W, on how many and what percentage of prisoners released under the home detention curfew scheme breached the rules of their curfew and were recalled to prison in each year since 1999.
Information on the numbers of prisoners by their respective times spent on the scheme from all prison establishments in England and Wales in each year since 1999 can be found in the following table. The maximum period under which a prisoner may be released early under the Home Detention Curfew scheme is 135 days. Prisoners are not released for longer than that period. Therefore no prisoner has been released on HDC five or six months before the end of their sentence.
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.
Total2 Less than or equal to 1 month Greater than 1 month to less than or equal to 2 months Greater than 2 months to less than or equal to 3 months Greater than 3 months to less than or equal to 4 months Greater than 4 months to less than or equal to 4.5 months Number 1999 14,800 3,800 10,700 — — — 2000 15,500 4,000 11,200 — — — 2001 13,700 3,300 9,900 — — — 2002 20,500 5,600 12,800 900 — — 2003 21,200 5,600 4,200 6,400 1,300 1,900 2004 19,300 5,300 3,900 2,800 1,400 4,300 2005 17,300 4,300 3,300 2,700 1,500 4,000 2006 13,700 3,000 2,500 2,200 1,400 3,300 Percentage 1999 — 26 72 — — — 2000 — 26 72 — — — 2001 — 24 72 — — — 2002 — 27 62 4 — — 2003 — 26 20 30 6 9 2004 — 27 20 15 7 22 2005 — 25 19 16 9 23 2006 — 22 18 16 10 24 1 2006 figures are provisional and subject to change. These statistics are based on information recorded on the central prison IT system on 4 June 2007. Further updates and amendments may be made to records on this system resulting in revised figures. These figures have been rounded to the nearest 100. 2 The total includes those cases where changes to a prisoner’s status, such as a recall or a new sentence, have disrupted the flow of data within the information system. For these cases it is not possible to attribute a definitive time on tag.