To ask the Secretary of State for Justice

(1) how many prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection on 30 November 2010 were beyond a tariff of (a) two years or less, (b) three years of less, (c) four years or less and (d) five years or less;

(2) how many prisoners (a) of each sex and (b) in each age band were serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection on 30 November 2010; and how many had (i) exceeded their tariff and (ii) exceeded their tariff and had not completed an offenders' treatment programme.

On 17 November 2010 there were 6,375 offenders in custody (including those serving their sentence in secure mental hospitals) for an indeterminate sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) or Detention for Public Protection (DPP), of which 3,173 were past tariff (excluding offenders who have been recalled to custody).

Of the 3,173 offenders whose tariff had expired:

(a) 1,432 had a tariff of 730 days or less (approximately two years or less).

(b) 2,601 had a tariff of 1,095 days or less (approximately three years or less).

(c) 3,080 had a tariff of 1,460 days or less (approximately four years or less).

(d) 3,169 had a tariff of 1,825 days or less (approximately five years or less).

The following table presents a breakdown of the population of IPP and DPP prisoners by gender and age-group. This also excludes 41 where there was no tariff expiry date on the Public Protection Unit Database (PPUD) on the 17 November 2010. Of these, 36 offenders were sentenced in 2010.

The figures above were taken from PPUD in the National Offender Management Service, and, as with any large scale recording system, it is subject to possible errors arising from either data entry or processing. PPUD is a live database, updated on a regular basis. As a result, snapshots taken on consecutive days will contain differences reflecting updates.

On 3 December 2010, there were 498 offenders who were past tariff and had not completed at least one programme, of which 455 were men and 43 were women. It should be noted that some of these offenders had started or started and not completed a programme. An age band (as at 17 November 2010) breakdown is presented in the able below. This information was taken from a database held by the Public Protection and Mental Health Group at the National Offender Management Service.