The following table shows the numbers of British, Irish and other EEA nationals serving mandatory life sentences, other life sentences (including discretionary life imprisonment) and indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPP) in prison establishments in England and Wales as at 30 June 2009. These are the latest available data.
British nationals Irish nationals Other EEA nationals Mandatory lifers 4,381 55 67 Other lifers 2,263 24 12 IPPs 4,882 38 63
The figures on mandatory and other lifers have been drawn from the prison IT system. The IPP figures were taken from the Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD) in the National Offender Management Service. The PPUD is a live database, updated on a regular basis. Data taken from the database on consecutive days will contain differences reflecting updates.
Both the prison IT system and the PPUD are administrative systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.