(2) how many prisoners sentenced to a custodial term of six months served (a) six months, (b) three months or less and (c) six weeks or less of their sentence in each year since 1997.
Automatic release at the halfway point of sentence was introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 1991. Prisoners who are sentenced to three months therefore normally serve six weeks in prison and prisoners who are sentenced to six months normally serve three months in prison. Adult prisoners sentenced to less than 12 months are not subject to supervision by the probation service on release from custody. However, they are ‘at risk’ of return to custody by the courts, to serve the unexpired portion of the sentence, if they commit an imprisonable offence before the expiry date of the original sentence. Young offenders (those under the age of 22 released from a term of detention in a YOI) are subject to a minimum of three months supervision. Juvenile prisoners sentenced to a detention and training order are supervised as part of the conditions of these sentences.
The actual amount of time served in prison, following sentence, will depend on a number of factors, including time spent as a remand prisoner or credit for time spent on tagged bail if directed by the court, any added days and release on either home detention curfew or end of custody licence.
Data for 1997 and 1998 are not available.
For those prisoners discharged between 1999 and 2008 having been sentenced to three months, the amount of time served is shown in the following table.
One week or less Six weeks or less Over six weeks and less than three months1 Three months Total 1999 10 3,600 4,100 20 7,700 2000 10 3,700 4,000 10 7,800 2001 20 3,500 3,700 20 7,200 2002 20 3,800 3,200 30 7,000 2003 20 3,500 3,100 50 6,600 2004 20 3,100 3,300 50 6,500 2005 20 2,100 3,300 50 5,400 2006 10 1,200 3,300 70 4,600 2007 10 1,300 3,000 90 4,300 2008 10 700 3,200 80 3,900 1 Around 90 per cent. of prisoners in the over six weeks and less than three months category have served within two to three days of exactly six weeks.
For those prisoners discharged between 1999 and 2008 having been sentenced to six months, the amount of time served is shown in the following table.
Six weeks or less Over six weeks and up including to three months Over three months and less than six months Six months Total 1999 80 6,400 1,000 10 7,500 2000 90 6,500 1,000 10 7,600 2001 80 6,300 1,000 20 7,400 2002 120 6,400 800 10 7,400 2003 170 6,200 600 10 7,000 2004 110 6,200 600 10 6,900 2005 60 5,500 600 10 6,100 2006 50 4,900 600 10 5,500 2007 70 5,000 600 10 5,700 2008 60 5,000 590 20 5,700
Numbers below 1,000 have been rounded to the nearest 10. Numbers over 1,000 have been rounded to the nearest 100.
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.