All offenders in prison or under probation service supervision will be recorded on prison and probation administrative IT systems. The table shows (a) the prison population as at 30 June each year and (b) the number of offenders under probation service supervision in the community as at 31 December each year in England and Wales 2002-07:
Prison population Court orders Persons supervised under post-release 2002 71,218 116,125 22,000 2003 73,657 120,734 21,106 2004 74,488 128,217 22,739 2005 76,190 137,377 25,603 2006 77,982 146,532 26,096 2007 79,734 149,045 26,763
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording systems, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.