Research was undertaken in 2004 by the Home Office research development and statistics department into the types of prisoner most at risk of absconding. Open prisons now routinely assess risk of prisoners absconding when they arrive at the prison and take a variety of other actions to help reduce absconding. The rate of absconding continues to fall and the number of absconds are at their lowest level since centralised reporting of this type of incident began in 1995.