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24 Feb 2009 : Column 720W—continued
Prison Sentences
Andrew Stunell: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice pursuant to the answer of 12 January 2009, Official Report, column 519W, on prison sentences, how many and what proportion of prisoners serving a prison sentence beyond their original or adjusted tariff were prisoners serving indeterminate imprisonment for public protection who had (a) not yet completed their mandatory courses and (b) are awaiting a Parole Board hearing at the most recent date for which figures are available, broken down by region. [256225]
Maria Eagle: As of 15 December 2008 there were 1,508 prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP) who were or would be held in prison beyond their tariff on 9 February 2009.
There are no mandatory courses that IPP prisoners must complete before being considered for a Parole Board hearing. Therefore, there are no IPP prisoners who are awaiting a Parole Board hearing having not completed a mandatory course.
However, IPP prisoners may be identified as suitable for inclusion in specific offending behaviour programmes, depending upon the nature of their offending and their identified risk factors. As of December 2008, 2,865 IPP prisoners had been given access to at least one offending behaviour programme. This equates to 58 per cent. of the current IPP prisoner population.
These figures are taken from a NOMS database and, as with any large scale recording system, it is subject to possible errors arising from either data entry or processing.
Prisons: Databases
Mr. Garnier: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) when he expects to ensure (a) that all prisoners at HM Prison Gartree receive an OASys assessment on or within eight weeks of arrival at the prison and thereafter annually or on completion of significant milestones and (b) that the backlog of OASys assessments at HM Prison Gartree is cleared; [258094]
(2) when he expects to have recruited the necessary additional staff at HM Prison Gartree to provide OASys assessments for prisoners there. [258095]
Mr. Hanson: The requirement for an offender assessment (OAsys) to be completed within eight weeks of arrival applies to offenders received into an establishment following sentencing. As Gartree is a training prison, all prisoners received there should already have an up to date OASys assessment in place. However, Gartree did develop a backlog of OASys assessments that had not been reviewed for over three years and a recovery plan has been put in place to address. It is expected that annual reviews of all outstanding OASys plans will be completed by June 2009.
Staff recruitment is complete as far as officer posts are concerned, thought he recent National Offender Management Service recruitment freeze means that there are still vacancies for support staff which are currently filled by agency staff.
Prisons: Drugs
Mr. Burrowes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what progress has been made in the provision of drug treatment in prisons following the establishment of the Prison Drug Treatment Strategy Review Group in 2008. [256393]
Mr. Hanson: The Prison Drug Treatment Strategy Review Group reports jointly to the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health. Work on the review started in September 2008 and is expected to take two years to complete. The remit of the Group will be to consider the PricewaterhouseCoopers recommendations, agree a single set of priorities and compile national guidance around the streamlining of the commissioning, delivery, funding and performance management of drug treatment for offenders.
My noble Friend Lord Patel has spent a number of months visiting prisons and talking to key stakeholders such as commissioners, treatment providers and service users in order to select membership of the Review Group. In January I announced that he had selected these members and a list was placed in the Libraries of the House. The first meeting of the Review Group will be held on 26 February. The work programme will include the development of minimum standards, outcomes and commissioning systems for drug-using offenders in prisons and those leaving custody.
I expect to receive quarterly updates on progress and will report periodically to the House. A decision has yet to be taken on publication of the final report.
Mr. Burrowes: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of using dogs in the detection of drugs in prisons. [256396]
Mr. Hanson: The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has in place a process to ensure that each prison dog and handler team are assessed annually as to their effectiveness in detecting concealed drugs. Without passing the annual assessment, for which a certificate of accreditation is awarded, dog and handler teams are not permitted to operate.
In addition, the Government have accepted all 10 recommendations contained within David Blakey’s review: Disrupting the supply of drugs into prisons. One recommendation was that NOMS conducts an internal review to determine whether search dogs and their handlers are distributed effectively around the prison estate and that the management processes for handlers are robust. That review is currently under way.
Prisons: Industrial Health and safety
Mr. Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many prison cells were closed for health and safety reasons in each of the last five years. [257634]
Mr. Straw: Prisoner accommodation is certified for use or to be taken out of use by senior operational managers (as required by section 14 of the Prison Act 1952).
Unfortunately cell-certificates do not always provide details of why accommodation is being taking out of
operation and to provide this information would require a manual check of all cell certificates for the last five years and would incur disproportionate costs.
Young Offenders: Sentencing
Mr. Ruffley: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many sentences were given to young offenders in (a) 2007 and (b) 2008, broken down by type of offence. [256738]
Mr. Hanson: The available information, for offenders aged 10 to 17 is shown in the following tables.
Statistics for 2008 will not be available until Sentencing Statistics 2008 is published in late 2009.
| Sentences given to juvenile offenders( 1) by offence type, 2007 | |||||||
| Violence against the person | Sexual offences | Burglary | Robbery | Theft and handling stolen goods | Fraud and forgery | Criminal damage | |
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