Offender management statistics bulletin: July to September 2014
Source: data.gov.uk (2018-05-25)

Offender Management Statistics. Key statistics relating to offenders who are in prison or under Probation Service supervision.

It covers flows into these services (receptions into prison or probation starts) and flows out (discharges from prison or probation terminations) as well as the caseload of both services at specific points in time.

Offender Management 
Statistics Quarterly Bulletin, 
England and Wales 
 
July to September 2014 
 
 
 
 
 
Ministry of Justice 
Statistical Bulletin 
 
 
29 January 2015 
 

 
Introduction 
This bulletin provides the latest statistics relating to offenders who are in 
prison or supervised in the community in England and Wales. It covers flows 
into these services (receptions into prison or probation starts) and flows out 
(releases from prison or probation terminations) as well as the caseload of 
both services at specific points in time. The figures are presented in detail, 
with commentary, in the following sections of the bulletin.  
 
Further information about background, data definitions, data quality issues 
and users of the statistics are available in the accompanying document.  
 
The next edition of this bulletin, covering the period October to December 
2014, will be published on 30 April at 9.30am. 
 
 
 
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Key Findings  
 The prison population has continued to increase, at an annual growth of 
around 1%. This continues to be driven by increases in the remand 
population, and a greater number of adult sentenced sex offender 
prisoners. 
 
 The prison population serving an Indeterminate Sentence for Public 
Protection continues to decrease, but an increasing number and 
proportion of prisoners in this population are now post-tariff.   
 
 Sentenced prison receptions and releases from prison decreased across 
all sentence lengths, apart from receptions for long determinate sentences 
of four years or more and indeterminate receptions, which increased over 
the last year.  
 
 The number of individuals released on temporary licence (ROTL) 
continued to fall, with nearly a third less individuals being released in the 
most recent quarter compared to the same time last year. This follows the 
written ministerial statement on ROTL policy on 10 March 2014. 
 
 Both the total probation caseload and the court order caseload remained 
stable between the quarters ending September 2013 and September 
2014, each falling by less than 1%.  
 
 The number of offenders starting community orders fell by 7% over this 
period, whilst starts of suspended sentence orders with requirements 
attached increased by 2%. The fall in community order starts is consistent 
with quarter on quarter trends seen over the past couple of years, and with 
the trends in court sentencing statistics over the same period. 
 
 The proportion of offenders not returned to custody following a licence 
recall over the whole period 1999 to the end of December 2014 remained 
constant with only 6 in 1,000 prisoners not being returned to custody. 
 
 
 
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Prison population 
The prison population grew rapidly between 1993 and 2008, at an average of 
4% a year. This rapid rise was driven by: 
 
 Increases in the number of people sentenced to immediate custody from 
1993 to 2002;  
 Increases in the average custodial sentence length and increased use of 
indeterminate sentences; and 
 Increases in the number of offenders recalled to prison following breaches 
of their licence conditions, along with increases in the average length of 
time these offenders spent in prison once recalled. 
 
The rise in the prison population slowed considerably from the summer of 
2008, in part due to the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Immigration 
Act 2008, which changed sentencing and offender management in ways 
which helped to reduce growth in the prison population. 
 
This flatter trend continued until the public disorder seen in UK cities from 6 to 
9 August 2011 which had an immediate but temporary impact on the prison 
population. During 2012 and into 2013, the prison population began to fall due 
to a falling remand population and a continued decline in the number of under 
18s in custody. The falling remand population during 2012 reflected falling 
volumes going through the courts plus the introduction of the Legal Aid, 
Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act in December 2012. 
This Act restricted the use of remand for offenders who would be unlikely to 
receive a custodial sentence. 
 
The ‘Story of the Prison Population 1993 to 2012’ is an in-depth look at what 
happened to the prison population between 1993 and 2012 and the major 
factors contributing to the changes.  
 
Following the LASPO Act in December 2012, and up until the end of June 
2013, the prison population stabilised. In particular, by March 2013 the 
remand population stopped falling as it had done since August 2011. After 
settling at a lower level the remand population then began to rise again from 
August 2013, and contributed to the sharp rise in the prison population seen 
between the end of August and October 2013. Overall, since June 2013 the 
prison population has increased, albeit at a slower rate than in previous years, 
typically growing at 1% a year. 
 
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Figure 1: Quarterly prison population and annual percentage change, 
England and Wales, December 1995 to December 2014 
 
 
Over the twelve months to December 2014, the total prison population 
increased by 1%, principally driven by a rising remand population and a 
greater number of adult sentenced sex offender prisoners. The sentenced 
population remained broadly stable, increasing only slightly, and offsetting the 
decrease seen in the non-criminal population which fell over the same time 
period. 
 
The remand population increased by 5% over the year; this was mainly due to 
a rising trend in the adult remand population that continued over the 12 
months, up 6% on the same time last year. This has been attributed to an 
increase in demand on the courts, which in some cases has led to longer 
waiting times. 
 
Whilst the sentenced population remained stable, its composition changed, 
with more prisoners serving determinate sentences of four years or more and, 
to a lesser extent, an increase in recalls. Over the twelve months to 
December 2014 the number of prisoners serving these long determinate 
sentences increased by 5%. Much of this increase is due to the LASPO Act 
which abolished the Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP), and 
introduced the new Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS), which is now 
available for offenders who would previously have received an IPP. As at the 
end of December 2014 there were 1,502 prisoners serving an EDS, which is 
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more than double the number (656 prisoners) who were serving these 
sentences twelve months ago at the end of December 2013. The remainder of 
the increase reflects the number of offenders being received into custody with 
other longer determinate sentence lengths.  
 
The number of prisoners serving indeterminate sentences (IPP or life) was 
down 3% on the previous year, to 12,360. This decrease is explained entirely 
by the abolition of the IPP sentence; offenders are no longer receiving these 
sentences and prisoners are only being released from this population. 
Compared to last year, whilst the number of prisoners serving IPP sentences 
fell from 5,335 at the end of December 2013 to 4,894 at the end of December 
2014, the population has become increasingly post-tariff. In particular, the 
entire IPP population with a tariff of less than two years is now post-tariff.  
 
The number of lifer prisoners remained stable. There were 50 whole life 
prisoners at the end of December 2014, with five additional life prisoners 
being treated in secure hospitals. 
 
The number of sentenced adult sex offenders continued to increase, and at 
the end of December 2014 was at 11,360, which is 7% (or 751) higher than 
twelve months before. This is consistent with the increasing number of sex 
offenders being given custodial sentences by the courts and, more broadly, 
with the recent ‘Crime in England and Wales’ bulletin from the Office for 
National Statistics that reported the highest number of sexual offences 
recorded by the police since 2002/03, for the year ending September 2014. 
 
Consistent with this, over the long term, an increasing proportion of sentenced 
prisoners are serving sentences for more serious offences – the proportion 
serving sentences for sexual offences increased from 10% in 2000 to 16% at 
the end of December 2014. Similarly, 27% of the sentenced population had 
committed violence against the person offences, up from 21% in 2000.   
 
Due to problems with data quality, reporting on the populations in the 
'Burglary' and 'Theft and Handling' offence groups had been disrupted 
between 1 July and 31 December 2014.  This is because, for statistical 
purposes only, some prisoners have been mis-allocated between these two 
offence groups. This has been clearly footnoted in the affected tables (Tables 
1.2a, and 1.2b), and these data points are replaced with symbols for this 
edition (..). The reporting of these figures has been further postponed until the 
next edition of OMSQ in April 2015. 
 
The female prison population grew by 1% over the 12 months to December 
2014, consistent with the increase in the prison population as a whole. 
However, the female sentenced population saw increases in shorter 
sentences and decreases in longer sentences, in contrast to what has 
happened in the male sentenced population. 
 
There was a decrease in the foreign national population in custody, which was 
down 2% on the previous year to 10,503 on 31 December 2014 (representing 
12% of the prison population). However, this is an increase on the previous 
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quarter ending 30 September 2014, which was the lowest quarter ending 
number since March 2006. This was driven by an increase in the foreign 
national remand population, as the foreign national sentenced population 
continued to fall. The fall in the last twelve months predominantly reflects a 
revised agreement with Home Office to reduce the number of immigration 
detainees in the prison estate, which reduced the non-criminal population by 
12% over the period. Additionally, in August 2014 an exercise was undertaken 
to improve the recording of the nationality of prisoners. This resulted in around 
100 foreign national prisoners being removed from this group after having 
their nationality information updated. 
 
 
 
Prison receptions 
First receptions count prisoners the first time they appear in prison from court. 
A prisoner's reception type is counted each time they are first received into 
custody as untried, convicted unsentenced and sentenced prisoners from 
court. This means that prisoners can be counted in more than one of these 
categories if their custody status changes as they progress through the 
Criminal Justice System in the reporting period. 
 
First receptions fell 5% to 26,391, with decreases in both remand and 
sentenced receptions compared to the same time last year. There was an 
increase in untried receptions for drugs offences (17%) and sexual offences 
(5%), but decreases in untried receptions for fraud and forgery (24%), theft 
and handling (24%), robbery (15%) and motoring offences (14%). Similar 
falling trends were seen in the convicted unsentenced receptions. There was 
a continued increase in sentenced receptions for sexual offences (13%) and 
burglary (4%), but decreases in receptions for all other offence groups, in 
particular, theft and handling (13%), robbery (10%) and motoring (9%). 
 
There were decreases in juvenile and young adult receptions for remand and 
determinate sentences of less than four years. For adults, there were 
decreases in convicted unsentenced remand receptions (6%) and short 
sentence receptions. Increases in longer sentenced receptions of four years 
or more are consistent with the aforementioned population trends for these 
sentence lengths. 
 
 
 
Prison releases 
A total of 18,444 offenders were released from custody in the quarter ending 
September 2014, a fall of 7% on the same quarter last year. This has been 
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driven by a decrease in male releases of 8%, whereas there has been a 3% 
increase in the number of female prisoners released from determinate 
sentences. 
 
There were 103 prisoners released from an IPP and a further 74 from a life 
sentence, making up a 17% decrease in releases from indeterminate 
sentences when compared to the same period last year. In addition, 18 
indeterminate sentenced prisoners were removed under the Tariff Expired 
Removal Scheme (TERS) in the latest quarter. This scheme allows 
indeterminate sentenced foreign national prisoners, who are liable to removal 
from the UK, to be deported from the country on or after the date of their tariff 
expiry without reference to the Parole Board. The scheme began in May 
2012, and by the end of September 2014 there had been 274 removals in 
total. 
 
Average sentence lengths of those released from determinate sentences 
remained stable across all sentence bands. Average time served fell slightly 
when all sentence bands are taken together, however increases in time 
served were seen for shorter sentences of greater than 6 months to less than 
12 months. 
 
The number of releases on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) fell by 14% to 
2,185 between the quarters ending September 2013 and September 2014. To 
be considered for release under HDC an offender must be serving a sentence 
of less than 4 years, and the number of offenders serving such sentences has 
been falling (see earlier population section). The decrease of 11% in the 
eligible population will have a direct impact on the number that can be 
considered for HDC release and the number that are subsequently released.  
 
Between July and September 2014, there were 108,877 releases on 
temporary licence (ROTL) from prisons in England and Wales. This is a 23% 
decrease since July to September 2013; with all types of licence showing 
decreases. This fall follows the written ministerial statement on ROTL policy 
on 10 March 2014 which set out a more thorough assessment of the risks 
before temporary release is authorised and a more consistent and robust 
response for prisoners who fail to comply with their licence. The number of 
release incidences for females decreased by 8%, compared to a 24% 
decrease for males over the same period. The number of individuals given at 
least one instance of ROTL between July and September 2014 was 4,409, 
which represents a 29% decrease over the year. Of the individuals given at 
least one instance of ROTL, 15% were on an indeterminate sentence.  
 
The number of recorded temporary release failures (TRFs) between July and 
September 2014 was 61, which represents a 33% decrease over the year. 
The number of recorded failures has shown a decrease every quarter since 
April to June 2013. This quarter we have introduced a rate of TRF per 
100,000 releases to the temporary release tables. This failure rate also 
decreased over the last year. 
 
 
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Probation 
Transforming Rehabilitation is a reform programme that has changed the way 
offenders are managed in the community. On the 1st June 2014, Probation 
Trusts were replaced by the National Probation Service (NPS), which 
manages the most high-risk offenders across seven divisions; and 21 
Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs), which manage medium and 
low-risk offenders. At the end of September 2014, the point at which this 
bulletin reports on offender caseload in the community, the probation 
caseload was still in transition with some cases held, both in the NPS and 
CRCs, pending transfer to the other organisation for reasons relating to 
effective risk management. 
 
The total annual probation caseload (court orders and pre and post release 
supervision) increased by 39% between 2000 and 2008 to 243,434. Since 
then the probation caseload has fallen year on year, reaching 219,588 at the 
end of 2013, down 2% from the previous year. The caseload has remained 
relatively stable since then and stood at 219,778 at the end of September 
2014. 
 
 
Figure 2:  Number of offenders under Probation Service supervision (at 
end December), 2003-20131 and September 2014  
 
0
50,000
100,000
150,000
200,000
250,000
300,000
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Post-release supervision
Pre-release supervision
Suspended sentences
Community sentences
 
 
1) Between 2003 and 2013, the number of offenders supervised in the community refers to the annual caseload 
ending December of each year. For 2014, the number of offenders supervised in the community corresponds to the 
caseload ending September 2014.  
 
The court order caseload (offenders on community orders (COs) and 
suspended sentence orders (SSOs)) fell slightly (less than 1%), with the CO 
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caseload falling 2% but the SSO caseload rising by 3% between the quarters 
ending September 2013 and September 2014.   
 
The caseload of offenders supervised before or after release from prison 
remained stable between the quarters ending September 2013 and 
September 2014, but those supervised under post release fell by 3%, 
consistent with the falling trend in prison releases. The number of pre-release 
supervision starts also remained stable over this period. 
 
The number of offenders starting community orders fell by 7% over this 
period, whilst starts of SSOs with requirements attached increased by 2%.  
The fall in community order starts is consistent with quarter on quarter trends 
seen over the past couple of years. 
 
In addition, in the quarter ending September 2014 there were over 2,000 
starts of SSOs without requirements attached. This brings the total number of 
stand-alone SSO starts to more than 8,350 since they were introduced under 
the LASPO Act 2012 (see data sources and quality section). 
 
With regard to the number of requirements started under court orders, there 
were again notable rises in curfews, and standalone curfews in particular. 
This may reflect the continuing impact of a mandatory punitive requirement in 
every community order, introduced from December 2013 under the Crime and 
Courts Act 2013. The combination of supervision and unpaid work 
requirements made under both community orders and suspended sentence 
orders also showed a significant rise over the latest quarterly period.  
 
Of the court orders terminated in the quarter ending September 2014, more 
than two-thirds (68 per cent) were terminated successfully (either ran their full 
course or terminated early for good progress). This was true for both COs and 
SSOs, and is relatively stable over time. 
 
The number of court reports prepared continued to fall – a total of 35,350 
court reports were prepared in the quarter ending September 2014, 10% 
down on the quarter ending September 2013, reflecting the continuing 
downward trend in the number of cases being completed by the courts.  
 
In general, courts follow the sentences proposed in pre-sentence reports 
(PSRs), particularly where an immediate custodial sentence has been 
recommended - 88% of such proposed sentences in PSRs resulted in 
immediate custody. 
 
 
 
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Licence recalls 
A key element of public protection is that offenders released on licence should 
be effectively supervised in the community and swiftly recalled to custody if 
they breach their licence or if their behaviour gives cause for concern. It is 
explained to offenders at the outset that they are liable to be recalled to 
custody if they breach any of the conditions of their licence. There are various 
reasons why offenders are recalled to custody for breaching their licence 
conditions besides committing a further offence. For example, an offender 
may be recalled if there is any deterioration in behaviour which leads the 
National Offender Management Service (NOMS) to conclude that there is an 
increased risk of the offender committing further offences.  
 
Over the period 1999 to September 2014, a total of 689,000 offenders were 
released from prison on licence supervision. Between April 1999 and 
September 2014, 181,926 of those released on licence were recalled to 
custody for breaching the conditions of their licence, e.g. failing to report to 
their probation officer.  Of all those recalled, 99.4% were returned and 1,122 
had not been returned to custody by the end of December 2014. The 
proportion of prisoners not returned to custody over this period is 0.6% and 
this is a relatively constant figure when compared to previous years. This total 
includes some offenders believed to be dead or living abroad but who have 
not been confirmed as dead or deported. 
 
Of the 1,122 not returned to custody by 31 December 2014, 141 had originally 
been serving a prison sentence for violence against the person offences and 
a further 37 for sexual offences. 
 
During the quarter ending 30 September 2014, a total of 4,697 offenders were 
recalled to custody and 126 had not been returned by 31 December 2014. 
This number is likely to decrease over time as police have more opportunity to 
locate and arrest these offenders. 
 
Accompanying this quarter’s bulletin there is a consultation on the licence 
recalls tables. This is part of the wider review of the Offender Management 
Statistics Quarterly bulletin to ensure it continues to meet our user’s needs. 
Alongside this consultation document there is also a proposed set of new 
licence recalls tables. These tables demonstrate how we propose to present 
these statistics in the future in light of the changes to supervision in the 
community as part of the Transforming Rehabilitation reform programme. In 
this edition of OMSQ, we recommend that users continue to refer to main 
licence recalls tables; the proposed tables are provisional and their purpose is 
for consultation only. 
 
 
 
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Contact points 
Press enquiries should be directed to the Ministry of Justice press office: 
Tel: xx-xxxx-xxxx 
 
Other enquiries about these statistics should be directed to: 
 
Jonny Hughes 
Ministry of Justice 
Justice Statistics Analytical Services 
7th Floor 
102 Petty France 
London 
SW1H 9AJ 
 
General enquiries about the statistical work of the Ministry of Justice can be e-
mailed to: xxx@xxx.xx 
 
General information about the official statistics system of the UK is available 
from www.statistics.gov.uk 
 
Ministry of Justice publishes data relating to offender management in England 
and Wales. Equivalent statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland can be 
found at: 
 
www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice 
 
www.dojni.gov.uk/index/statistics-research/stats-research-publications.htm 
 
 
This publication and associated spreadsheet files of the tables contained in 
this document and detailed information of definitions, sources and key 
legislative changes are available for download at  
www.gov.uk/government/collections/offender-management-statistics-quarterly 
 
 
© Crown copyright 
Produced by the Ministry of Justice. Alternative formats are available on 
request from xxx@xxx.xx