While the total number of people in prison was 1% down on the previous year (largely due to the fact that nearly 15,000 prisoners were released early in the previous 12 months), the unrelenting pressure on the system is clear from almost every major dataset. The key pressure points are:

• There were 18,478 first receptions into prison between April and June 2024, a rise of 6 per cent on the same period in 2023.
• There were a staggering 9,782 licenced recalls in the second quarter of this year, a 44% increase on 2023.
• The remand prison population remains at record high levels, there were 17,662 people on remand in prison on the 30th of September. One of the new factors driving the increase in the remand population is the number of people on remand for public order offences associated with the public disorder that occurred in different parts of the country in late July/early August.
• Another factor which will increase the prison population is the 64,625 adjudication outcomes between April and June this year. This figure is 30% higher than last year and additional days were awarded as punishment on 1,797 occasions a massive 80 per cent rise compared to 2023.

Long sentences

As most readers will be well aware one of the main factors driving the continued rise in our prison population is the fact that we now send many more people to prison for much longer periods of time. On the 30th September, there were 8501 unreleased prisoners serving indeterminate sentences (life sentences and IPPs). There were also 8467 prisoners serving extended determinate sentences who served the vast majority of their sentence in prison (with an additional extended period of licence in the community on release).

The probation caseload

As at 30 June 2024, there were 238,646 offenders supervised by the Probation Service in England and Wales. This has remained broadly stable over the last year, increasing by just 0.2% compared to 30 June 2023 and, more recently, decreasing by 0.1% compared to 31 March 2024.

Between the end of June 2023 and the end of June 2024, court order caseload decreased by 2% from 109,133 to 106,422, with the number of offenders on a community order (CO) decreasing by 7% and those on a suspended sentence order with requirements (SSO) increasing by 4%.

The total caseload of offenders supervised before or after release from prison at the end of June 2024 was 136,689, representing an increase of 2% compared to the end of June 2023.

Supervision requirements

Perhaps the most interesting part of the probation statistics are some big increases in the the number of requirements attached to both community orders and suspended sentence supervision orders:

Overall, between April and June 2024, 26,067 requirements were started under COs and 17,440 under SSOs, representing an increase of 8% and 21% respectively compared to the same period in the previous year.

In the latest quarter, increases were seen across most requirement types under COs and SSOs. Furthermore, rehabilitation remains the most common requirement included within a CO and SSO. Compared to the same quarter a year ago, the number of rehabilitation requirements started under COs rose by 11% to 11,773 and rose by 21% to 7,894 under SSOs.

Under COs, some of the most notable changes in requirements commenced between April and June 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023 were:

• mental health treatment (MHTR) increasing by 39% to 705
• drug rehabilitation (DRR) increasing by 23% to 1,265
• alcohol abstinence and monitoring (AAMR) increasing by 14% to 888
• electronic monitoring decreasing by 25% to 631

Under SSOs, some of the most notable changes in requirements commenced between April and June 2024 compared to the same quarter in 2023 were:

• mental health treatment (MHTR) increasing by 80% to 465
• exclusion increasing by 51% to 149
• alcohol abstinence and monitoring (AAMR) increasing by 40% to 581
• drug rehabilitation (DRR) increasing by 25% to 822.

The statisticians attribute this increase in MHTRs to a scaling up of the availability to sentence to this requirement across the criminal courts of England. 

They also conclude that the decline in electronic monitoring requirements is likely to be associated with the continued mandating of domestic abuse and safeguarding enquiries in all cases where electronically monitored curfews are proposed. This policy mandates that electronically monitored curfews should not be recommended to the courts unless these enquiries have been made first, and this requirement has likely led to the observed decrease in the overall number of electronically monitored curfews issued.

Of course, when looking at these probation statistics, it is important to remember that the probation “reset” introduced because of the combined pressures of chronic under-staffing and a surge in the number of prisoners released early on licence means that most low risk people supervised by the probation service will receive much less contact from their probation officers once the initial period of supervision has passed.

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here