asked Her Majesty's Government:

What was the total prison population in each of the past three years.[HL7356]

The table gives the total prison population in England and Wales at 30 June in each year since 2004. These figures have been drawn from administrative IT 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, and so is not necessarily accurate to the last whole number.