NCJ Number
191139
Date Published
May 2001
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This bulletin projects prison population for England and Wales up to the year 2008.
Abstract
The bulletin presents three scenarios. The first scenario assumes that custody rates increase at 4 percent per year for males and 9 percent per year for females, but sentence lengths stay at 2000 levels. This results in a prison population of 83,500 in 2008. If custody rates increase at 2 percent per year for males and 4. 5 percent per year for females, but sentence lengths stay at 2000 levels, the prison population will be 76,700 in 2008. If custody rates and sentence lengths remain at 2000 levels, the prison population will be 70,200 in 2008. The bulletin uses a flow model of offenders (into and out of prison) and allows for predicting the effect of changes in court sentencing policy. At the heart of the methodology is a model of offending that allows prediction of the numbers of first time offenders and takes into account the recidivism of those released from prison. The major uncertainty is the number of offenders arriving in prison for their first custodial sentence. This figure has been estimated to be approximately 15 percent of the prison population. Figures, tables, notes