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1 May 2007 : Column 1579W—continued
the young persons substance misuse service for 16 to 18-year-olds has a particular focus on alcohol.
Funding for alcohol treatment is not ring fenced.
Offenders: Unemployed
Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his most recent estimate is of the (a) number and (b) proportion of people (i) charged with a crime and (ii) imprisoned who were unemployed; and what the equivalent figures were (A) 10 years ago and (B) 20 years ago. [134137]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform is unable to provide the number and proportion of people charged and imprisoned who were unemployed, as the individual circumstances of offenders is not centrally held.
Police Cautions
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what mechanisms are in place for reviewing the appropriateness of the local use of conditional cautions for criminal offences; and if he will make a statement. [134947]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Conditional cautions are a statutory pre-court disposal which must be administered in line with the Code of Practice for Conditional Cautions and the Director of Public Prosecution's Guidance on Conditional Cautioning. The conditional cautioning scheme is currently being rolled out on a national basis. Criminal justice areas must demonstrate they have met all the implementation criteria, including adequate training before the scheme can be introduced.
The use of conditional cautions is monitored centrally and locally on the basis of monthly data. In addition, area implementation teams have been asked to engage with local judiciary, to provide them with feedback on the operation of the scheme and to enable them to raise any issues of concern.
Police Custody
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 28 March 2007, Official Report, column 1637W, on police custody, how many police officers were involved in the deployment of Operation Safeguard between (a) 12 October and 22 December 2006 and (b) 22 January and 9 March 2007; and which police forces were involved in each case. [133151]
John Reid: Staffing requirements for police cells being used as part of Operation Safeguard are a matter for individual police forces. These figures are not collected centrally.
Prison Service: Managers
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what mechanisms exist (a) to monitor and (b) to compare the performance of area managers within HM Prison Service; when each Prison Service area manager was appointed; what assessment he has made of the performance of the area manager for each Prison Service area; and if he will make a statement. [134539]
Mr. Sutcliffe: All area managers are managed by the deputy director general in HM Prison Service who is accountable for operational performance. The deputy director general has a wide range of management information against which to compare establishments and areas. Information performance is published in the annual report and is available via the Prison Service website.
Area managers are members of the senior civil service (SCS) and are subject to the SCS performance appraisal system.
Prisoners
David Davis: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners were serving an indeterminate sentence in each of the last three years, broken down by category of offence. [132348]
John Reid:
Figures by offence group for the numbers of prisoners serving life and indeterminate sentences in England and Wales between 2003 and 2005, the last year for which figures are available, can be found in the following table. These figures are taken from table
8.25 of the Offender Management Caseload Statistics for these years, copies of which can be found in the House of Commons Library.
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
| Population of Prisoners serving life and indeterminate sentences in prison establishments in England and Wales, at June 30, 2003-2005 | |||
| Type of Offence | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 |
Prisoners: Release
Mr. Jeremy Browne: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many and what percentage of prisoners were granted early release under the home detention curfew scheme in each year since its introduction. [133344]
Mr. Sutcliffe: Figures on the numbers of prisoners granted early release under the home detention curfew scheme between 1999 and 2005 can be found in the table. This table is also published as table 10.3 in the Offender Management Caseload Statistics 2005, a copy of which can be found in the House of Commons Library and which is available online at
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb1806 section10.xls
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Prisoners: Foreigners
Damian Green: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for how many foreign prisoners in prisons in England and Wales no country of origin was known on 31 March. [132930]
Mr. Sutcliffe: At the end of February 2007, the last date for which the information is available, there were 879 out of a total prison population of 79,582 (or about 1 per cent. of the prison population) prisoners detained in all prisons in England and Wales whose nationality was listed on the IT system as “unrecorded”. This figure includes instances where the prisoners’ nationality is unknown, where they have refused to give it, and where they are stateless.
The figure has been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
Prisons: Drugs
Mr. Garnier:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department pursuant to the answer of 9 January 2007, Official Report, columns 546-7W, on
prisons, what his assessment is of the relative significance of each of the six main drug supply routes into prison; what policies are in place to close off each of the routes; what steps he has taken to ensure that these policies are operating as standard in each prison in England and Wales; and on what date these policies were introduced. [134075]
Mr. Sutcliffe: The supply of drugs into prisons does not take place within a static environment. The supply route of choice will vary between prisons and at a particular prison over a period of time, depending on the demand for illicit drugs by prisoners and the effectiveness of supply reduction measures in place. The relative significance of supply routes therefore changes frequently.
The comprehensive range of supply reduction measures available to prisons is designed to address the key routes of supply. Decisions about which measures should be deployed are a matter for individual establishments, based on local need.
The Supply Reduction Good Practice Guide, issued in October 2003 and currently being updated, provides a benchmark for supply reduction policy.
Supply reduction performance is monitored by Area Managers during routine visits to prisons and bilateral meetings with Governors and the Deputy Director General. Area Drug Co-ordinators receive monthly data on performance targets from establishments.
Mr. Bellingham: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prisoners are subject to (a) closed visits and (b) extra monitoring arrangements at each prison establishment due to drug-related concerns; and if he will make a statement. [134708]
Mr. Sutcliffe: This information is not collected centrally.
Prisons: Telephones
Mr. Clegg: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he plans to implement the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman’s recommendation that the cost of telephone calls in prisons be reduced. [133987]
John Reid: I am satisfied that in the majority of cases calls made by prisoners from prisons are cheaper than an equivalent call made from a public phone box. There are therefore no plans to reduce the cost of these calls.
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