Written question asked by Alan Duncan (Conservative) on Wednesday, 10 February 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 22 February 2010. It was answered by Maria Eagle (Labour) on Tuesday, 23 February 2010 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Prisoners Release

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of offenders who (a) on release from custodial sentences and (b) on commencement of a community sentence, are moved to a different geographical area from their home address for (i) reasons of rehabilitation, (ii) reasons of victim safety and (iii) other reasons.

Answer: The information requested is not collated centrally. Offenders are transferred between probation areas for a variety of reasons, including rehabilitation and victim safety. However, there is no mechanism is place to record centrally the reasons behind these transfers.To answer the question, each probation area would need to review their case load to establish the number of offenders who have been transferred between probation areas, and then to examine those cases to determine the reasons behind each move. This could be achieved only by incurring disproportionate cost.

Secondary information