Speeches

Lord Bradley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradley on 2015-10-29.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many places in category D prisons were available in England and Wales in each month since January 2013.

Lord Faulks

Progression to open prisons is never automatic, and prisoners must generally be within two years of release before they can be considered for allocation. Public protection is paramount, only those prisoners who are assessed as low risk of escape/abscond and low risk of causing harm to the public are transferred to an open prison.

The following table shows the number of category D places that were available and occupied by prisoners in open prisons in England and Wales as at the last Friday in each month since January 2013. This information is published monthly on gov.uk

The data above does not include the number of places available and in use in category D units in otherwise closed prisons.

Breakdown of the population and capacity of the dedicated open estate from

January 2013 to October 2015.

Month

Capacity

Population

Jan-13

5,131

4,933

Feb-13

5,131

4,953

Mar-13

5,131

4,982

Apr-13

5,131

4,993

May-13

5,131

4,988

Jun-13

5,131

4,981

Jul-13

5,131

4,988

Aug-13

5,131

4,994

Sep-13

5,131

4,990

Oct-13

5,131

5,005

Nov-13

5,203

5,048

Dec-13

5,217

4,993

Jan-14

5,217

4,932

Feb-14

5,217

4,994

Mar-14

5,217

5,037

Apr-14

5,339

5,159

May-14

5,339

5,122

Jun-14

5,339

5,087

Jul-14

5,339

5,082

Aug-14

5,374

5,011

Sep-14

5,374

4,943

Oct-14

5,397

4,846

Nov-14

5,397

4,814

Dec-14

5,397

4,759

Jan-15

5,405

4,666

Feb-15

5,329

4,680

Mar-15

5,131

4,691

Apr-15

5,453

4,922

May-15

5,468

4,876

Jun-15

5,544

5,020

Jul-15

5,569

5,019

Aug-15

5,569

5,062

Sep-15

5,520

5,076

Oct-15

5,550

5,127