Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many (a) offenders and (b) offenders on temporary licence were released from HM Prison Service into the Probation Service, in each year since 2004.

Maria Eagle (Minister of State (also in the Government Equalities Office), Ministry of Justice; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)

Adult offenders serving a sentence of 12 months or more and all young offenders under 22 years of age are, upon release, subject to supervision by the probation services.

These figures are published annually in Offender Management Caseload Statistics (OMCS). Copies are in the House of Commons Libraries and on the MOJ website at:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/prisonandprobation.htm

The following table shows the number of discharges from determinate sentences from prisons in England and Wales. The figures are the sum of adult prisoners released from sentences of 12 months or more (including indeterminate sentences) and all young offender releases.

Data for 2009 will be available in the OMCS 2009 which will be published in July 2010.

Prisoners released on temporary licence remain the responsibility of the prison during the period of temporary release. However, where prisoners are liable to supervision on their normal release date but are released early under the End of Custody Licence scheme, they are required to meet their probation officer during the ECL licence period and to have regular contact after that in line with their supervision programme.

The number of ECL releases for those prisoners serving sentences of 12 months or more and less than four years for the year 2007 and 2008 was 2,941 and 5,643. Data for 2007 are based on the period from 29 June, when the scheme started, to 31 December.

All figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.