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Written question asked by Lord Marlesford (Conservative), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Bach (Labour) on Tuesday, 1 December 2009.

Prisons: Drugs

Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of the prison population are serving sentences for drug offences.
Answer

The following table gives the numbers of prisoners held in all prison establishments in England and Wales as at the end of June 2009 to show those being detained for drugs offences as a percentage of all offences.

Remand Immediate custodial sentence All prisoners
All offences 13,456 68,375 81,831
Drug offences 1,919 10,696 12,615
% Drug 14% 16% 15%

This information is available at the following website which contains monthly briefings by the Ministry of Justice at http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/populationincustody.htm. For information on the position in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Prison Service can be contacted. 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.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
102; 715 c31WA
Session
2009-10
Subjects
Crime Drugs Prisoners Prison sentences
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk