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Northern Ireland Office;Northern Ireland Prison Service

Answer

Ms Mowlam: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many prisoners are planned to be released from prison in Northern Ireland in each of the next 12 months; and what proportion of these have benefited from the increase in remission rates introduced in the Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Order 1995.[25461] Sir John Wheeler: Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Northern Ireland Prison Service under its chief executive, Mr. Alan Shannon. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given. Letter from A. D. Shannon to Ms Marjorie Mowlam, dated 23 April 1996: The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to the Parliamentary Question you tabled relating to the numbers of prisoners it is planned to release from prison in Northern Ireland in each of the next 12 months. The information which you are seeking is contained in the attached table. In brief a total of 513 prisoners of whom 75 are affected by the Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Order 1995 are expected to be released from prison during the period 1 May 1996 and 30 April 1997. You should note that this figure does not include 20 prisoners who are in the final stage of release from life sentences and who are provisionally expected to be released during the next 12 months. You should also note that these figures are based on the prison population at the date of writing and cannot take account of the restoration of remission to individual prisoners. I hope this is helpful. Expected releases from 1 May 1996 to 30 April 1997--Figures in brackets represent the numbers affected by the application of the Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Act 1995 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Date MAGILL MAGH'B MAZE YOC Total May 1996 44 (1) 8 (1) 24 (2) 20 (0) 96 (4) June 40 (1) 18 (1) 14 (4) 11 (0) 83 (6) July 27 (1) 8 (2) 13 (3) 15 (0) 63 (6) August 23 (2) 7 (2) 15 (4) 8 (0) 53 (8) September 24 (0) 8 (2) 15 (8) 5 (0) 52 (10) October 17 (0) 5 (1) 12 (6) 4 (0) 38 (7) November 13 (2) 3 (2) 4 (3) 1 (0) 21 (7) December 20 (1) 4 (2) 9 (3) 2 (0) 35 (6) January 1997 8 (1) 2 (2) 8 (4) 2 (0) 20 (7) February 16 (3) 5 (2) 6 (1) 1 (0) 28 (6) March 7 (2) 1 (1) 8 (4) 4 (0) 20 (7) April 4 (1) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 4 (1) Total 243 (15) 69 (18) 128 (42) 73 (0) 513 (75) _________________________________________________________________________________________________. In addition there are currently 20 prisoners who are in the final stages of release from life sentences and who are provisionally expected to be released during the next 12 months. None of these prisoners have benefited directly from the 1995 increase in remission rates.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

25461; 276 c108-10W;276 c109-10W

Session

1995-96

Subjects

Northern Ireland Prisoners' release

Legislation

Northern Ireland (Remission of Sentences) Act 1995

Contains statistics

Yes