Prison Sentences

Ministry of Justice written question – answered at on 6 March 2019.

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Photo of Philip Davies Philip Davies Conservative, Shipley

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what is the shortest amount of time that must be served in prison by an offender who is sentenced to (a) four weeks, (b) three months, (c) six months and (d) 12 months imprisonment.

Photo of Philip Davies Philip Davies Conservative, Shipley

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what was the average amount of time served in prison by offenders sentenced to (a) four weeks, (b) three months, (c) six months and (d) 12 months imprisonment in the most recent year for which information is available.

Photo of Rory Stewart Rory Stewart The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice

Prisoners sentenced to a standard determinate custodial sentence must be released automatically at the halfway point of their sentence. Those sentenced to at least 12 weeks but less than four years may be released on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) up to 135 days before the halfway point, depending on sentence length. They must meet strict eligibility criteria and pass a risk assessment, and will be liable to recall to prison if they fail to comply with strict electronic monitoring and other conditions attached to their release.

Prisoners must serve at least one quarter of their sentence in custody (subject to a minimum of 28 days) before they can be released on HDC. Any relevant time spent on remand in custody or on bail subject to electronic monitoring ("tagged bail") may count as time served towards the sentence but an offender must serve at least 14 days after the sentence is imposed before release on HDC.

Table A below indicates the minimum period that must be served in prison before an eligible prisoner can be released on HDC, depending on the sentence passed by the court. In an individual case, this period would be reduced by any relevant “tagged bail” time directed to count by the court.

Table A

Total sentence length

Minimum period in prison

Maximum period on HDC

4 weeks

2 weeks

0

3 months

4 weeks

2 weeks

6 months

6 weeks

6 weeks

12 months

3 months

3 months

Table B below shows the average amount of time served in prison by offenders sentenced to (a) four weeks, (b) three months, (c) six months and (d) 12 months imprisonment in 2017.

Table B

Sentence length

Median average period in prison

4 weeks

0.43 months

3 months

1.48 months

6 months

2.96 months

12 months

5.98 months

The figures in this table 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.

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