The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-03-31.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the highest number of previous convictions for burglary for an individual convicted of an offence of burglary without being sent to prison was in each year since 2010.
Jeremy Wright
It has not been possible to obtain this information. I will write to the Honourable member in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-04-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether funding allocated to Action on Smoking and Health may be used for campaigning purposes by that body under the terms on which it is allocated.
Jane Ellison
Since 2011, the conditions for the grants provided to Action on Smoking and Health under the Department of Health’s “Section 64 General Scheme of Grants to voluntary and Community Organisations” arrangements have explicitly set out that none of the funding provided by the Department should be intended or used for political lobbying or campaigning purposes.
Advocacy work in support of the implementation of existing Government Tobacco Control policies and programmes of work is acceptable.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-05-06.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the level of public satisfaction in relation to the police when dealing with reports of (a) burglaries, (b) theft, (c) fraud, (d) non-domestic violence and (e) sexual offences.
Mr Nick Hurd
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners who breached their temporary licence conditions in each of the last three years were granted further release on temporary licence.
Jeremy Wright
An answer to this question could only be provided at disproportionate cost. It would entail detailed checking of over 1,100 individual prisoner records relating to those who had breached conditions attached to their temporary release during this period in order to see whether they had subsequently been granted further temporary release.
The number of temporary release failures remains very low, less that one failure in every 1,000 releases and only around five failures in every 100,000 releases involve alleged offending; but we are keenly aware of understandable public concern about temporary release failures. Towards the end of May we accelerated our plans to improve release on temporary licence (ROTL) policy and practice. We brought forward aspects of the new “restricted ROTL” approach for serious offenders to safeguard the public, and the requirement that no ROTL can take place without a clearly defined, legitimate purpose. In addition, those who have failed to return from or offended on temporary release, or who have absconded or escaped from custody during the current sentence will now be refused temporary release in the absence of exceptional circumstances.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-03-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many offenders who were recalled to prison from home detention curfew have been subsequently released back onto home detention curfew since 3 December 2012.
Jeremy Wright
The information required to answer these questions is due for publication on 24 April 2014. I will write to my Honourable friend as soon as it is available. A copy will be placed in the House Library.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-03-31.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what programmes which receive funding from his Department are available solely to (a) men and (b) women.
Simon Hughes
The information required to provide a full response to the question could not be collated within the timeframe available. I will write to the honourable member providing a full reply in due course
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have requested chemical castration in each of the last five years.
Jeremy Wright
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and NHS England do not provide for chemical castration of prisoners.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-05-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress he has made implementing the recommendations of Getting It Right for Victims and Witnesses, Cm 8288, published in January 2012; and if he will make a statement.
Damian Green
We have made great progress in implementing all recommendations from the ‘Getting it right for victims and witnesses’ consultation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners in open prisons were returned to closed prisons in each of the last three years by (a) reason for their return and (b) type of offence originally committed.
Jeremy Wright
We do not centrally hold data on the individual reasons for determinate sentence prisoner transfers, including transfers following re-categorisation and when prisoners have been returned to closed conditions from open prisons. Where this is available, the information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost as it would involve a manual trawl through the records of every prisoner to identify if they have ever been held in open conditions and subsequently returned to closed conditions.
However, the information, in part, is centrally available in respect of indeterminate sentence prisoners.
Table 1 provides the number of indeterminate sentence prisoners who have been returned from open conditions to closed conditions and where the transfer occurred between 1 April 2011 and 31 March 2014, grouped by year and by reason for transfer. The data has been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
We are unable to provide a breakdown of this information by index offence as this information is not held centrally; to obtain it would require a manual trawl through every case and this would incur disproportionate cost.
|
REASON FOR RETURN TO CLOSED PRISON |
2011-12 |
2012-13 |
2013-14 |
Grand Total |
|
Abscond |
117 |
161 |
170 |
448 |
|
Antisocial Behaviour |
48 |
96 |
74 |
218 |
|
Breach of Licence Conditions |
30 |
33 |
56 |
120 |
|
Drink/Drugs |
139 |
171 |
256 |
568 |
|
FNP |
3 |
3 |
||
|
Healthcare issues |
5 |
5 |
||
|
New charges/offences |
2 |
2 |
||
|
Non compliance |
1 |
28 |
29 |
|
|
Other |
135 |
235 |
298 |
668 |
|
Prisoner request |
2 |
2 |
||
|
Psychology concerns/issues |
6 |
6 |
||
|
Serious breach of prison rules |
1 |
21 |
22 |
|
|
Grand Total |
469 |
698 |
921 |
2,087 |
The main purpose of open conditions is to test prisoners in conditions more similar to those that they will face in the community. Time spent in open prisons affords prisoners the opportunity to find work, re-establish family ties, reintegrate into the community and ensure housing needs are met. For many prisoners who have spent a considerable amount of time in custody; these can assist in their successful reintegration in the community and protecting the public.
We make no apologies for taking a firm approach in returning prisoners to closed conditions wherever we need to do so.
The number of temporary release failures remains very low; less that one failure in every 1,000 releases and about five in every 100,000 releases involving alleged offending, but we take each and every incident seriously. The Government has already ordered immediate changes to tighten up the system as a matter of urgency. With immediate effect, prisoners will no longer be transferred to open conditions if they have previously absconded from open prisons; or if they have failed to return or reoffended whilst released on temporary licence.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-03-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many defendants charged with each offence type were sent to the Crown Court for sentence by magistrates in each of the last five years.
Shailesh Vara
The answers to both questions are contained in the following tables: