Surprise at prison population figures

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sat 10th Sep 2005

Young Alliance Chairman Ian James Parsley has said the people of Northern Ireland will be surprised by prison population figures released by the NIO, showing that Northern Ireland has proportionately less than half as many people in jail as England.

The North Down Councillor stated: "We in the Alliance Party have long supported various forms of criminal punishment, and we agree that prison is not always the best option. However, having witnessed ongoing violence throughout the summer, people will be utterly staggered than less than half as many people in Northern Ireland, proportionately, are in prison as in England. A far lower percentage of the Northern Ireland population is behind bars than any other region of the British Isles.

"If it were true that violence and crime were decreasing dramatically, this would be cause for celebration. However, this is simply not the case. From violence at interface areas to burglaries in the suburbs, crime is real and crime does affect people.

"Figures show that three times as many people, proportionately, were in prison ten years ago in Northern Ireland than is currently the case. One understands that we had to deal with the release of convicted terrorists as part of the political process, but is the NIO seriously trying to claim that Northern Ireland is a third as dangerous now as it was ten years ago?

"People will have a right to wonder whether the Government isn't just sacrificing the law-abiding people of Northern Ireland for a quiet time - it is up to the Government to prove otherwise."

ENDS

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NOTE TO EDITOR

NIO release below

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NIO RELEASE, 7 SEPTEMBER 2005

NORTHERN IRELAND PRISON POPULATION PROJECTIONS

2005-2009

The Northern Ireland Office today released Research

and Statistical Bulletin 12/2005 entitled 'Northern

Ireland Prison Population Projections 2005-2009'.

Research and Statistical Bulletin 12/2005, 'Northern

Ireland Prison Population Projections 2005-2009',

which is a National Statistics publication, presents

projections of the Northern Ireland prison population

for the period 2005-2009. The bulletin presents three

different projection scenarios for the overall prison

population based on possible trends in receptions of

immediate custody prisoners, developments in the size

of the remand population and assumptions about the

sentence length composition of the immediate custody

population. The bulletin also includes a separate

analysis of the population of life sentence prisoners

and a discussion about the future of the female prison

population.

Northern Ireland Prison Population Projections

2005-2009: Key Findings

• Statistical information about the annual average

population is available as far back as 1967, at which

point there were on average 686 people in custody in

Northern Ireland. In the early 1970's, the prison

population increased very rapidly to a high of 2,946

in 1978. The next two decades were characterised by a

generally declining trend, which was accelerated

further from 1998, following the Good Friday

Agreement. This decline reached a low of 910 prisoners

in 2001, followed by a rapid increase bringing the

prison population up to 1,274 in 2004.

• The bulletin presents three different projection

scenarios for the overall prison population in

Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2009.

• The low trend scenario assumes a very modest annual

increase in the determinate sentence immediate custody

receptions (2% per year from 2006), no change in the

average sentence length profile and an initial small

increase followed by a gradual decrease in the remand

population as a proportion of the overall population.

This results in a projected annual average of 1360

prisoners by 2009.

• The middle trend scenario assumes a relatively

modest annual increase in the determinate immediate

custody receptions (3% per year from 2006), a slow

increase in the average sentence length profile and an

initial small increase followed by a gradual decrease

in the remand population as a proportion of the

overall population. This results in a projected annual

average of 1509 prisoners by 2009.

• The high trend scenario assumes an annual increase

of 5% for determinate immediate custody receptions and

a gradual increase in the sentence length profile of

the immediate custody proportion. The scenario also

assumes a slight initial decrease in the remand

population as a proportion of the overall population,

which is then held constant for the rest of the

projection period. This results in a projected annual

average of 1641 prisoners by 2009.

• In 2004, Northern Ireland had an average prison

population of 1274. This equates to approximately 74

prisoners for every 100,000 people in the population.

In an international context, this is a relatively low

level of imprisonment. The Home Office World Prison

Population List (fifth edition) reports similar

proportions for Northern Ireland and some Scandinavian

countries. In this comparison, Northern Ireland had 70

prisoners per 100,000 population in 2003, compared

with 70 in Finland and 73 in Sweden in 2002. The

figure for England and Wales was 141 prisoners per

100,000 population in 2003, 129 per 100,000 for

Scotland and 85 per 100,000 for the Republic of

Ireland.

• The life sentence population in Northern Ireland was

drastically reduced following the Good Friday

Agreement, from an average of 255 prisoners in 1995

down to an average of 88 in 2001. Over the last three

years, the life sentence population has been growing

again, and there were on average 122 prisoners in this

category in 2004. Three possible life sentence

prisoner projection scenarios for the period 2005-2009

are presented resulting in a projected life sentence

population annual average of between 147 and 189

prisoners by 2009.

• The annual average female prison population in

Northern Ireland peaked in the early 1990's, with an

average of 41 females in custody in both 1992 and

1994. There was a considerable decline in the female

prison population from 1994 to 1999, partly due to

releases under the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act

1998. Since 1999 the population has fluctuated and

there has not been any consistent trend. While

Northern Ireland has seen a decline in the size of the

female prison population over recent years, the

reverse has been the case in England and Wales,

Scotland and the Republic of Ireland.

The Bulletin is available for downloading from the NIO

web-site (www.nio.gov.uk).