Offender Management Statistics
Last week’s (30 January 2025) quarterly Offender Management Statistics reveal the continuing pressures on the prison system caused by the remand and recall populations in particular. The figures (which cover the prison population numbers to 31 December 2024 and most other datasets for the third quarter of last year) show that:
- There were 9,975 licence recalls between July and September 2024 – an incredible 42% increase on the same quarter in 2023.
- The remand prison population as at 31 December 2024 was 17,023 (representing 20% of the total prison population) yet another all time high.
Prison statistics
Early Release
The sentenced population was 67,947, which is a 4% decrease from the same point 12 months earlier. This was largely driven by decreases in the population serving determinate sentences of 14 years or less, resulting from a policy change on early release from Standard Determinate Sentences (SDS) that took effect on 10 September 2024 (resulting in the release of a large number of offenders on that day), together with earlier releases on End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) from October 2023 to 9 September 2024, and the removal of a maximum sentence length constraint for Home Detention Curfew (HDC) release in June 2024. Among these shorter sentences the largest proportionate decrease, 20%, was seen for those serving sentences of 6 months or less.
Remand
The 31 December 2024 remand population figure of 17,023 is 6% higher than in December 2023 and is the highest ‘end of December’ figure in at least the last fifty years. The untried prison population rose by 7% (to 11,195) when compared to the end of December 2023 whilst the convicted unsentenced population rose by 6% (to 5,828) over the same period.
The two largest offence groups for those held on remand were ‘violence against the person’ (44% of the untried population and 31% of the convicted unsentenced population) and ‘drug offences’ (12% of the untried population and 16% of the convicted unsentenced population).
The largest proportionate offence group increase in both the untried and convicted unsentenced populations was observed for Public Order Offences, with a 97% and 54% increase compared to end of December 2023 respectively. This increase is likely to be driven by the prosecutions associated with the public disorder in cities across England and Northern Ireland that occurred in late-July / early-August 2024.
While white prisoners make up 74% of the sentenced population, they make up only 65% of the remand population. All other reported ethnic groups have the same, or greater, proportional representation in the remand population than they do in the sentenced population.
Recall
The population recalled to custody (12,920 prisoners) has increased by 7% relative to the total a year earlier. The longer-term increases in the recall population are likely driven by a combination of factors such as increases in the average length of determinate sentences and an increase in the number of people serving indeterminate sentences or sentences with an extended licence,
however over the most recent 12-month period the licence population will have also included additional ‘early releases’ on End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL, in effect from Oct 2023 to Sep 2024) as well those released following the expansion in Home Detention Curfew (HDC) to include those serving certain determinate sentences of 4 years or more (which came into effect in mid-June 2024).
Adjudications
There were 68,765 adjudication outcomes between July and September 2024. This is an increase of 30% on the same quarter in the previous year (but much closer to the totals for the previous 2 quarters, since the change in the data source used to calculate these figures). Additional days were awarded as punishment on 1,767 occasions in this quarter, a rise of 50% on the same period in 2023.
Around three out of every five (62%) adjudications were proven.
Probation
The total number of offenders on probation (i.e., court orders and pre/post-release supervision) in England and Wales at the end of September 2024 was 240,497. With an increase of 1%, this remains largely unchanged compared with the end of September 2023 but represents a larger increase of 9% compared with the end of September 2014.
Caseload
Between the end of September 2023 and the end of September 2024, court order caseload decreased by less than 1% from 107,992 to 107,124, with the number of offenders on a community order (CO) decreasing by 6% and those on a suspended sentence order with requirements (SSO) increasing by 7%. In addition, the number of offenders subject to a Supervision Default Order decreased by 33% over the same period, coinciding with the implementation of probation reset.
The total caseload of offenders supervised before or after release from prison at the end of September 2024 was 137,890, representing an increase of 2% compared to the end of September 2023. This increase is driven by a rise in the post-release supervision caseload, which has been steadily increasing since the end of September 2023 and coincides with the introduction of both the ECSL and SDS40 schemes.
Trends in community orders
In the latest quarter, increases were seen across most requirement types under community orders (COs) and suspended sentence supervision orders (SSOs). Rehabilitation remains the most common requirement included within a CO and SSO.
Under COs, some of the most notable changes in requirements commenced between July and September 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023 were:
- electronic monitoring decreasing by 23% to 621
- accredited programme increasing by 22% to 1,761
- mental health treatment (MHTR) increasing by 22% to 692
- exclusion increasing by 22% to 287
- drug rehabilitation (DRR) increasing by 16% to 1,328
Under SSOs, some of the most notable changes in requirements commenced between April and June 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023 were:
- mental health treatment (MHTR) increasing by 34% to 481
- exclusion increasing by 27% to 162
- accredited programme increasing by 26% to 1,868
- drug rehabilitation (DRR) increasing by 24% to 880
- alcohol abstinence and monitoring (AAMR) increasing by 17% to 609
Conclusion
This set of MoJ accredited official statistics is a key publication for those of us wanting to keep on top of trends in the prison and probation systems. It remains, of course, to be seen what impact the various government initiatives (sentencing review, criminal courts review, women’s justice board) will have on these statistics in a couple of years’ time.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
