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Home Office

Answer

Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the Prison Service's current projections for changes in the prison population in each of the next five years; and if he will make a statement. [90597] Mr. George Howarth: The Research Development and Statistics Directorate of the Home Office provided revised projections of the prison population in England and Wales in May, and a summary of the projection is included in the April 1999 `Prison Population Brief' which is available on the Internet at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm Projections are provided according to various alternative scenarios. The middle variant projection assumes that Crown Court custody rates increase at 0.6 per cent. for males and 1.1 per cent. for females, and that sentence lengths increase by 0.2 months per year in the first two years (but by no more thereafter). A higher variant assumes that from 2001, in addition to the custody rate increases assumed in the middle variant, sentence lengths continue to increase after the first two years at 1.5 per cent. per annum for males and 2 per cent. per annum for females. The results are as given in the table. These scenarios both assume that the amount of courts' business remains constant over the period. A third scenario, that sentence lengths and custody rates do not increase further, leads to a prison population of 67,400 by 2006. Projections take into account known legislative and policy changes. Long term projections of male and female prisoners, projected through to 2006, England and Wales _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Higher variant: Total 64,900 67,000 68,800 70,000 70,800 72,000 73,500 75,000 Male 61,600 63,200 64,800 65,900 66,600 67,700 69,200 70,600 Female 3,300 3,800 4,000 4,100 4,200 4,300 4,300 4,400 Middle variant: Total 64,800 66,500 68,100 68,800 69,200 69,700 70,200 70,900 Male 61,600 62,900 64,300 64,800 65,200 65,600 66,100 66,700 Female 3,300 3,600 3,800 4,000 4,000 4,100 4,100 4,200 _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

90597; 335 c202-4W;335 c202-3W

Session

1998-99

Subjects

Prisoners Prisons Population

Contains statistics

Yes