PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Prisoners' Release: Females (24 October 2017)
Question Asked
Asked by:
Chris Elmore (Labour)
Answer
Making sure that we address female offenders’ housing and support needs is an absolute priority, at national and local level, given the link between homelessness and re-offending.
We recognise that improvements need to be made to current probation services and are working with providers to consider further action that we might take.
Whilst the latest data suggests that there is an apparent increase in homelessness, it cannot therefore be assumed that homelessness has increased over the data period, as there are limitations to this data due to the rates of non-recording which we have been seeking to improve. The table below only shows releases from prison who are under Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC) supervision. There is no equivalent Settled Accommodation on Release metric for the NPS so data on National Probation Service (NPS) releases has not been included.
Releases of Female Allocated Persons (of a CRC) From Custody | ||||||
| Quarter | |||||
| Jan-Mar 2016 | Apr-Jun 2016 | Jul-Sep 2016 | Oct-Dec 2016 | Jan-Mar 2017 | Apr-Jun 2017 |
Releases | 1,143 | 1,055 | 1,050 | 972 | 1,092 | 1,087 |
Recorded as Homeless1 | 103 | 132 | 126 | 134 | 164 | 227 |
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Notes: | ||||||
1Cases where the Accommodation Status recorded on the day of release was: Homeless (any), Squatting or No fixed Abode were counted as homeless. | ||||||
Not all releases have an Accommodation Status recorded; of this dataset, between 16% and 5% of releases in each quarter did not record an accommodation status. | ||||||
The reported proportion homeless increases over the reported period (9% to 21%), however the rate of non-recording has decreased due to HETE initiative (16% to 5%). | ||||||
It cannot be assumed that homelessness has increased. | ||||||
Because recording of Accommodation Statuses at release in London CRC is too low to be reliable, London CRC has been excluded from this dataset. | ||||||
Releases at Licence Expiry (without post-sentence supervision), releases following a period on remand without a custodial sentence, and releases outside of HMPPS authority (e.g. release for deportation, release to an address in Scotland or Northern Ireland) are not in this dataset. | ||||||
This dataset records each release separately; if an offender is released more than once, they will appear more than once in this dataset. | ||||||
Releases of persons who are not Allocated Persons of a CRC (i.e. offenders managed by the NPS) are not included in this dataset. | ||||||
Answered by:
Mr Sam Gyimah (Liberal Democrat)
1 November 2017
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