The following table gives the number of women sentenced to immediate custody for theft and handling in England and Wales and each English region in each year since 1997.
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Metropolitan Police2 536 598 627 677 592 728 679 549 508 514 North West 578 660 767 754 632 696 677 622 506 517 North East 304 366 585 626 705 708 702 509 376 373 Midlands 124 156 210 363 354 428 388 376 327 366 Eastern 113 202 261 288 313 335 314 319 234 231 South East 258 331 390 373 506 539 556 556 520 469 South West 93 145 208 165 178 226 185 187 169 156 England 2,006 2,458 3,048 3,246 3,280 3,660 3,501 3,118 2,640 2,626 Wales 82 92 113 126 123 117 105 121 129 113 England and Wales 2,088 2,550 3,161 3,372 3,403 3,777 3,606 3,239 2,769 2,739 1 Principal offence basis. 2 Includes City of London Note: These figures have been drawn from administrative data systems. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. Source: RDS-NOMS, Ministry of Justice
Women prisoners are held in designated women’s units and prisons. In exceptional individual circumstances women may be held separately within a male prison for a short period.
The following is a count of female prisoners by establishments in England and Wales as at 31 December 2007:
Number Askham Grange 112 Bronzefield 422 Downview 346 Drake Hall 290 East Sutton Park 89 Eastwood Park 318 Foston Hall 248 Holloway 465 Low Newton 299 Morton Hall 355 New Hall 401 Peterborough 346 Send 211 Styal 428 Total 4,330
This information is published at the Ministry of Justice website at:
http://www.iustice.gov.uk/docs/population-in-custody-dec07.xls
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.