Non-payment for a television licence is not an imprisonable offence. Offenders are dealt with by way of a fine. Non-payment of a fine may result in a short custodial sentence. At 31 October 2007 there were no fine defaulters in prison establishments in England and Wales whose main offence was non-payment for a TV licence.
This information has been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large-scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.