Prison Factfile
Anyone and everyone who wants accurate up-to-date information on what is going on in our prisons relies on the prison factfiles produced by the Prison Reform Trust. Known as the Bromley Briefings, they are issued twice a year. The most recent edition was published on Wednesday (12 February 2025). Ise mine so regularly, I have a shortcut to it on my desktop.
The Briefings always lead with an editorial, this edition focuses on the dramatic rise in prison recalls which threatens to undermine the Government’s emergency prison overcrowding measures.
Recalls
In the year to September 2024, there were nearly 32,500 admissions to prison following a recall — a 27% increase from the previous year. Between July and September 2024 (the latest available period), there were 9,523 recall admissions to prison a 39% rise on the same quarter in 2023 and a record high.
The jump in recalls has particularly affected those serving short prison sentences of less than 12 months. In the year to September 2024, there were 15,211 recall admissions to prison for this group — a 51% rise on the year before. Prior to the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 (ORA), recall was not available for this group, partly in recognition that it could undermine efforts to reduce reoffending, and that little could be achieved during such a short period in custody.
Between July and September 2024, there were over 4,700 recall admissions for those serving short prison sentences — a staggering 71% rise on the same quarter in 2023. Last year also saw the number of recalls for people serving short prison sentences surpass those serving sentences of 12 months or more for the first time.
The briefing shows that almost one in five (18%) of the sentenced prison population are now held in prison on recall — 12,920 people, a 7% rise on the year before and a record high. Latest projections from the Ministry of Justice suggest that this could rise a further 13% by 2026 — to 13,650 people, placing further pressure on an already overcrowded and overstretched prison estate.
A recall can be triggered for more than one reason. However, in the majority of cases recalls are for non-compliance rather than suspected further offending. Of all recalls in the year to September 2024, just a quarter (25%) involved a charge of further offending, while more than three-quarters involved non-compliance (76%), more than a third involved failure to keep in touch (34%) and almost a quarter involved failure to reside — often exacerbated by the difficulties in securing stable accommodation on release.
10 key prison facts
As usual, I have perused the Briefing in depth and found 10 key facts to share in this post. Since readers of the blog are more than averagely well informed about penal affairs, I have tried to feature some of the less well-known issues.
1 Life sentences
7,406 people in prison are serving a life sentence and have never been released. Almost one in seven (13%) have a tariff of 10 years or less, almost half (47%) have a tariff of over 10 years and up to 20 years, and almost two in five (38%) over 20 years. There are an additional 839 people who have been recalled. The number of people serving a life sentence has almost trebled in the last 30 years.
2 Remand
People on remand account for almost one in five of the prison population (19%) — over 17,000 people. The majority are awaiting trial (65%), whilst the rest are awaiting sentencing. In September 2022, almost a third of people (32%) on remand had been held in prison beyond the six month time limit — nearly 4,600 people. One in 20 (5%) had been there for longer than two years — 770 people. The government now claims it is too costly to produce data on how much time people spend on remand.
3 Children on remand
On average, 196 children were held in prison on remand in the year to March 2023. They currently account for almost half of children in prison (44%) — up from 22% in 2013.
4 Self-harm
Self-harm by women in prison hit a record high of 20,834 incidents last year. The number had already nearly doubled (96%) between 2013 and 2022. Between June 2022 and 2023 alone, it increased by another two-thirds (65%), and a further 3% in the next 12 months.
5 Restricted regimes
In 2023–24, inspectors judged that almost four in five inspected prisons (79%) were poor or not sufficiently good at providing purposeful activity, compared to 93% in the previous year. The majority that scored well were open prisons, which are intended to prepare people for release.
6 Emergency measures
10,083 people were released under the End of Custody Supervised Licence Scheme (ECSL). Despite generally serving shorter sentences for less serious offences, women in prison were only eligible for ECSL for the last seven months of its operation. 3,112 people serving determinate sentences were released on two single days in September/October 2024 under SDS40, having served 40% of their sentence, rather than the usual 50%. 61% of people released under the initial SDS40 activation were serving sentences of less than five years. Assuming an average sentence length of three years, they would have been released just under four months sooner than intended.
7 Prison staffing
There are nearly 1,700 more officers than there were in 2021– 34% of the staffing target, but there are still 5% fewer than in 2010.
8 Private prisons
In England and Wales there were 17,314 people held in 14 private prisons as of September 2024 (20% of the imprisoned population).
9 Older prisoners
With prison sentences getting longer, people are growing old behind bars. The number of people in prison aged 60 and over has grown rapidly over the last two decades. There are almost four times the number there were in 2002. Almost one in five (18%) of the prison population are aged 50 or over — 15,703 people. Of these 4,349 are in their 60s and a further 2,004 people are 70 or older.
10 Foreign nationals
Foreign nationals (non-UK passport holders) currently make up one in eight people in prison in England and Wales (12%). On 30 September 2024 there were 10,418 foreign nationals in prison.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
