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Prisoners Release

Volume 463: debated on Monday 23 July 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice from which prisons prisoners have been released under the End of Custody Licence Scheme; and how many prisoners have been released under the scheme, broken down by offence for which they were imprisoned. (150749)

Figures showing the numbers of prisoners who were released under End of Custody Licence between 29 June and 5 July from prison establishments within England and Wales, showing from which prison they were released and the offence group for which they were serving sentences, can be found in the following table. These figures are based on statistics published on 16 July and updates will be published monthly.

The End of Custody Licence was introduced on 29 June 2007. Eligible prisoners serving between four weeks and less than four years may be released under licence from prison up to 18 days before their automatic release date.

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.

Table 1: ECL releases: by offence, sentence length, age, ethnic group and sex

Male

Female

Total

All ECL releases between 29 June 2007 and 5 July 2007

1,552

149

1,701

By offence

Violence against the person1

317

27

344

Robbery

22

2

24

Burglary

148

1

149

Theft and Handling

354

50

404

Fraud and Forgery

31

6

37

Drug offences

57

8

65

Motoring offences

213

6

219

Other offences

379

48

427

Offence not recorded

31

1

32

1 Excludes serious violent offences such as murder, manslaughter, wounding with intent to commit grievous bodily harm, possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life, child cruelty and serious explosives offences. A full list of exclusions can be found in Prison Service Instruction 27/2007.

Note:

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. See Data Sources and Quality section of report for more information.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prisoners were released under the End of Custody Licence Scheme on each day since 27 June 2007; and how many of those released have since been re-arrested for further suspected offences. (150794)

Figures showing the daily number of releases of prisoners released on End of Custody Licence up to the end of the period for which published material is available, and the numbers returned to prison, are in the following tables:

Date

Number of releases

Friday 29 June 2007

884

Monday 2 July 2007

506

Tuesday 3 July 2007

124

Wednesday 4 July 2007

87

Thursday 5 July 2007

100

Number

Decisions to recall as notified to NOMS

30

By reason for recall:

Re-offended1

6

Failed to reside2

6

Out of touch3

11

Poor behaviour4

7

Number of offenders unlawfully at large on 5 July 2007

18

Information on the number of arrests for suspected offences is not held centrally.

These figures are based on statistics published on 16 July and updates will be published monthly. The End of Custody Licence was introduced on 29 June 2007.

Eligible prisoners serving between four weeks and less than four years may be released under licence from prison up to 18 days before their automatic release date. 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.