Official prison breaks

Not so much prison breaks, as prison mistakes.

A recent Freedom of Information (FOI) request gave the official figures for the number of prisoners “released in error” in 2015/15.

There were 48 prisoners released in error, with 41 of those released from prison and 7 from court, all but two of these were returned to custody.

Although the accidental release of approximately one prisoner per week (including a murder and several violent offenders), 2014/15 was actually a good year with the rate of this administrative errors down from 0.81 per thousand in 2009/10 to 0.56 per thousand.

The table below shows full details. I have highlighted the more serious offences and prisons where more than one prisoner was released in error:

Congratulations to HMP Bullingdon.

All comments very welcome!