International Law

Prison by numbers

By John Hirst

This year's prison population projections are the first sign that the relentless rise in the prison population is slowing

New prison population projections, published by the Ministry of Justice but quality-assured by the UK Statistics Authority, estimate that by June 2015 between 83,400 and 95,800 people will be in prison in England and Wales.

If nothing else, these figures show just how imprecise a science predicting the prison population is. If their lowest estimate is correct, the prison population will be no higher in seven years than it is now. If their highest prediction proves to be accurate, more that 12,000 additional prison places will need to be found. This explains, to some extent, how difficult it is for any government to accurately predict how many prison places will be needed, and to build capacity accordingly.

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on September 23, 2008 (boomark / email).