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Written question asked by Mark Oaten (Liberal Democrat) on Monday, 23 February 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 26 February 2009. It was answered by Shahid Malik (Labour) on Thursday, 26 February 2009 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Winchester Prison

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 11 February 2009, Official Report, column 2094W, on prison accommodation, what the average period of time for which prisoners were detained in Winchester Prison was in each of the last three years; and how many prisoners detained in the prison had a registered home within 50 miles of the prison in each such year.
Answer

Prisoners move between prisons during the course of their sentence. Time spent in each prison is not recorded centrally. The following table shows the average period in months of those prisoners discharged from HMP Winchester from determinate sentences, including time spent on remand, spent in prison (this may include time spent in establishments other than HMP Winchester).

Average time served (months)
2005 2006 2007
Up to and including six months 2 2 2
Over six months and less than 12 months 4 4 5
12 months to less than four years 11 12 13
Four years to less than life 48 52 38
All determinate sentence lengths 5 6 6
Note:
Data for 2008 for this part of the answer are not available.

The number of prisoners held at HMP Winchester in each of the last three years with a home address within 50 miles of the prison (data from September in each year) is set out on the following table:

Prisoners held within 50 miles of home address
2006 599
2007 448
2008 474
Note:
Where no home address is listed for a male or female prisoner or young offender the committal court is used as a proxy address

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, and have been tabulated according to availability of data.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
488 c996-7W; 258912
Session
2008-09
Related items
Prison Accommodation
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects
HMP Winchester
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk