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Prison: Programmes and Courses

Volume 504: debated on Tuesday 26 January 2010

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how many prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for public protection have (a) had access to and (b) completed (i) one or more sex offender treatment programme courses, (ii) the Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage It course and (iii) the Enhanced Thinking Skills course in each of the last five years; (311881)

(2) how many prisoners serving indeterminate sentences for public protection (a) have been assessed as needing the healthy relationships programme and (b) have completed the healthy relationships programme, in each prison providing the programme in each year since such programmes were introduced;

(3) how many of those prisoners serving indeterminate public protection sentences who have reached their tariff expiry date had completed (a) none, (b) one and (c) two or more of the offender behaviour courses specified on their sentence plans prior to the expiry of the tariff;

(4) how many prisoners serving indeterminate public protection sentences had completed (a) no, (b) one and (c) two or more offender behaviour courses on the most recent date for which figures are available;

(5) how many prisoners of each (a) age group, (b) sex and (c) ethnicity were serving indeterminate sentences for public protection on the most recent date for which figures are available.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) database on indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPP) prisoners holds information on IPPs currently in custody. It therefore does not include those who have been discharged, or those whose IPP sentence was subsequently quashed. Although it captures data on access to, and completions of, accredited offending behaviour programmes, it does not record the date or location of programme completions, so answers are not broken down by year or location of completion.

In 2009 NOMS rolled out the Thinking Skills programme, which will replace the Enhanced Thinking Skills programme. The following figures therefore include data for both programmes. On 19 January 2010 there were a total of 5,828 IPPs currently in custody. Of those IPPs currently in custody:

628 have had access to one or more Sex Offender Treatment programme courses;

842 have had access to the Controlling Anger and Learning to Manage It (CALM) programme;

3,509 have had access to the Enhanced Thinking Skills programme (ETS) or the Thinking Skills programme (TSP);

497 have completed one or more Sex Offender Treatment programme courses;

755 have completed the CALM programme; and

3,344 have completed the ETS or TSP programmes.

Of those IPPs currently in custody:

24 have been assessed as needing the Healthy Relationships programme; and

52 have completed the Healthy Relationships programme.

On 19 January 2010 there were a total of 2,468 IPPs who had reached their tariff expiry date. As the NOMS IPP database does not record the dates of accredited Offending Behaviour programme completions, it is not possible to determine whether the completions took place before or after tariff expiry.

Of the 2,468 post tariff IPPs currently in custody:

466 have completed no accredited Offending Behaviour programmes;

779 have completed one accredited Offending Behaviour programme; and

1,223 have completed two or more accredited Offending Behaviour programmes.

On 19 January 2010 there were a total of 5,828 IPPs currently in custody. Of those IPPs currently in custody:

1,991 have completed no accredited Offending Behaviour programmes;

1,939 have completed one accredited Offending Behaviour programme; and

1,898 have completed two or more accredited Offending Behaviour programmes.

The NOMS IPP database will not able to report on the ethnicity of IPP prisoners until June 2010. The age profile of the 5,828 IPPs in custody on 19 January 2010 is:

IPPs

15-17 years old

23

18-20 years old

284

21-24 years old

1,176

25-29 years old

1,243

30-39 years old

1,502

40-49 years old

1,092

50-59 years old

344

60 +years old

164

The gender profile of IPPs is: male 5,673 and female 155.