Last week, the MoJ published Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service Offender Equalities Annual Report for 2022/23 (yes MoJ seems to have missed the change in monarch). This is no longer the comprehensive report it used to be as HMPPS & MoJ publish equalities information in other places (see page 30 of the report if you want more information on staff equalities, women or ethnicity). Nevertheless, it is still an important and helpful guide to the protected characteristics of people in prison. I have included some of the main points below.
Gender
Proportionally males make up 96% of the total prison population and females 4%. Since pre-COVID (2019) the female prison population has decreased by 6% (from 3,832 to 3,612 prisoners) and the male population has increased by 7% (78,802 to 84,279 prisoners) – I have updated the figures in the report to take account of the latest prison population statistics published on 1 December.
Ethnicity
White prisoners made up 66% of the remanded prison population and 74% of the sentenced prison population. On 31 March 2023, prisoners who self-declared as being from a black or black British ethnic background made up 14% of the remand prison population and 12% of the sentenced population. Prisoners who declared their ethnicity as Asian or Asian British, represented 10% of remand and 8% of sentenced prisoners.
Age
The majority (33%) of prisoners were in the 30 to 39 age group. As at 31 March 2023, the second largest group were in the 40 to 49 age group which covered 20% (16,778) of the prison population. Since pre-COVID (2019) there has been a decrease in the younger age groups, with a 46% decrease in the 15-17 age group. Over the same period there has been increases in the older age groups, such as a 15% increase in the 40-49 group.
Faith
Almost half (45%) of the prison population that specified a religion or belief self-identified as being Christian in March 2023. As of 31 March 2023, 31% (26,328) prisoners identified as having no religion and 18% (14,991) identified as a Muslim.
Sexual orientation
In the latest quarter, 97% of prisoners who declared a sexual orientation reported that they were heterosexual. This is broadly comparable with trends reported over the past ten years.
The publication provides a helpful chart summarising the key protected characteristics of people in prison which I have reproduced below.
Transgender prisoners
There were 269 transgender prisoners in the 2023 data collection, an increase on the 230 recorded in 2022. 225 prisoners reported their legal gender as male, 44 as female. There were 25 transgender prisoners from an ethnic minority background. There were 13 prisoners known to have a Gender Recognition Certificate, up from 11 on 31st March 2022. 221 transgender prisoners were in the male estate and 48 in the female estate.
Mother and baby units
There was a slight drop in applications to MBUs in the 12 months to March 2023, 80 compared to 85 the year before. Of the 55 applications approved or refused by a board, 40 of them were approved (73%) and 15 were refused (27%). In the 12-months to March 2023, 30/57 white pregnant prisoners had their applications approved, compared to 9/20 for women from a minoritised background. Pregnant prisoners tended to be aged over 30 (57% of pregnant prisoners) and from a white ethnic group (81% of pregnant prisoners).
Incentives
On 31 March 2023 46% of the prisoner population had Standard incentives status and 50% had Enhanced (initial) status, 4% had Basic status and less than 1% had Enhanced (extended) status. Minoritised prisoners were more likely to be on the Standard Status: 55%, 49% and 47% respectively of prisoners from “other” ethnic groups, mixed ethnicity and black or black British ethnicity were on a Standard Incentives status compared with 44% for prisoners who identified as Asian and Asian British and 45% for white ethnicity prisoners. Similarly, only 46% Muslim prisoners were on the Enhanced status.
Accredited programmes
There were 4,820 accredited programme starts. 62% (2,978) of these were general offending programmes and 21% were sexual offending-related programmes. Violence programmes made up 10% (469) of all starts and programmes for domestic violence comprised 6% (266) of all programme starts. 2% (96) of starts were for substance misuse programmes, while extremism programmes were less than 1% (11) of all starts.
There were 4,135 programme completions. General offending programmes accounted for 61% (2,503) of all accredited programmes completed in custody, while 22% (916) were sexual offending programmes and 10% (400) violence programme completions. Domestic violence programme completions (200) accounted for 5% of all completions. Substance misuse (92) and extremism (24) programmes made up 2% and 1% respectively of all completions.
Offenders in custody from an ethnic minority (excluding white ethnic minorities) background made up 25% of both programme starts and programme completions, the remaining 75% were offenders from a white ethnic (including white ethnic minorities) background.
Thanks to Alexander Grey for kind permission to use the header image in this post which was previously published on Unsplash.
