asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many persons have been (a) prosecuted, and (b) convicted of (i) assisting a person to escape from prison or other custodial institution, and (ii) bringing a prohibited article into a prison in each of the past five years. [HL4231]
In England and Wales, assisting a person to escape from prison or other custodial institution and bringing a prohibited article into a prison are not listed as separate offences on the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform.
The data provided in the table below (E& W) gives the total number of defendants proceeded against and found guilty in England and Wales of selected offences under the Prison Act 1952. Footnote (3) of the table explains this in more detail.
The available data for Northern Ireland (NI) and for Scotland (SCOT) are provided in the tables below.
Number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates' courts and found guilty at all courts, for selected offences under the 1952 Prison Act, England and Wales, 2001 to 2005(1)(2)(3) Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Offence Proceeded against Found guilty Proceeded against Found guilty Proceeded against Found guilty Proceeded against Found guilty Proceeded against Found guilty Summary offence(3) 33 23 24 16 22 16 19 7 23 15 Indictable offence (3) 5 0 1 4 2 2 3 1 0 2 Total 38 23 25 20 24 18 22 8 23 17
(1) These data are on the principal offence basis.
(2) Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.
(3) The above table shows data for the following two offences:
the summary offence (195/46) comprises—conveying spirits into prison, conveying tobacco into prison, attempting to convey spirits into prison, attempting to convey tobacco into prison, placing liquor/tobacco outside prison with intent, office allowing liquor/tobacco to be sold, office allowing liquor/tobacco to be used, placing letter/thing outside prison with intent, conveying an article to a prisoner and attempting to convey an article to a prisoner. The maximum penalty for this offence is six months in prison and or a £1,000 fine.
the indictable offence (099/99) comprises—aiding a prisoner to escape, aiding a prisoner to attempt to escape, conveying article to prisoner to facilitate escape, placing article outside prison to facilitate escape and sending article into prison or prisoner to facilitate escape. The maximum penalty for this offence is 10 years in prison.
Table 1: Prosecutions and convictions for (a) assisting escape from lawful custody and (b) bringing a prohibited item into prison 2001-2005(1) (2) Assisting escape from lawful custody Bringing prohibited article into prison Prosecutions Convictions Prosecutions Convictions 2001 0 0 0 0 2002 0 0 0 0 2003 0 0 0 0 2004 0 0 0 0 2005 1 0 0 0
(1) Data are collated on the principal offence rule; thus only the most serious offence with which an offender is charged is included.
(2) Data refer to the Prison Act (NI) 1953, Section 30.
Persons proceeded against in Scottish Courts for offences under the Prison (Scotland) Act 1989 Section 41(1)(2) , 2001-02 to 2005-06 Year Proceeded Against Charge Proved 2001-02 - - 2002-03 - - 2003-04 1 1 2004-05 4 4 2005-06 10 7
(1) Where main offence.
(2) Relates to offences of unlawful introduction of tobacco, etc into prison
1. The figures provided on numbers of convictions are derived from information held on the SEJD court proceedings database. The figures for a particular year will exclude the outcome of court proceedings which had not been recorded on the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) criminal history system at the point at which the analysis file for that year was created—generally around 12 months after the end of the year in question. For example, the figures for 2005-06 will exclude any cases not recorded on SCRO by the end of February 2007. As it can take more than a year for the outcome details of some court disposals (particularly in the High Court) to be recorded on SCRO the figures shown are likely to be slight underestimates.
2. The data held centrally on the SEJD database cannot separately identify the offence of aiding a person to escape from prisons from the offence of escaping from prison.