The Northern Ireland Prison Population 2019/20 report published today

Date published: 25 September 2020

The report looks at the average daily prison population and the number of receptions into Northern Ireland prisons for the financial year 2019/20. The key findings were as follows:

Average Daily Prison Population

• The overall average daily prison population increased by 4.7% during 2019/20 to 1,516. Males increased from 1,384 to 1,442 while the female population increased from 65 to 74.
• The remand population increased by 12.9% from 436 in 2018/19 to 492 this year and is at its highest level since reporting by financial year began in 2014/15.
• The proportion of prisoners on remand has increased each year, rising from 23.3% during 2014/15 to 24.7% during 2015/16, 25.4% during 2016/17, 25.6% during 2017/18, 30.1% during 2018/19 and 32.4% during 2019/20.
• During 2019/20 the average daily immediate custody prison population increased by 1.2% to 1,018.
• Prisoners aged between 30 to 39 years of age made up the largest age group of the average daily immediate custody prison population (34.4%; 350), the second year in succession this has been the case. Prior to this, the age group 21 to 29 years had accounted for the largest number of prisoners from 2014/15 to 2017/18.
• The proportion of those aged between 18 and 20 years of age has increased for the first time since 2014/15, accounting for 3.1% (32) of the total population during 2019/20.
• In terms of custodial sentence length, the average daily population decreased in all sentence categories, compared to last year, except for those serving a life sentence (up from 158 to 165), a sentence greater than one year but less five years (up from 407 to 427) and a sentence greater than six months but twelve months or less (up from 172 to 179).
• Violence against the Person offences continue to account for the largest proportion of all principal offence categories (34.2%; 348).

Receptions

• The number of receptions during 2019/20 was higher than the previous year, 5,322 compared to 5,252 during 2018/19, an increase of 1.3%.
• Remand receptions increased by 3.2% over the last year, up from 3,206 during 2018/19 to 3,310 during 2019/20.
• The number of receptions for fine default (where the individual was received into custody solely for fine default offences) decreased by 40.2%, from 371 in 2018/19 to 222 in 2019/20.
• The largest number of immediate custody receptions was recorded within the 21 to 29 years age group, accounting for 689 (39.7%) of receptions.
• A larger proportion of female receptions were sentenced to a custody sentence length of one year or less (85.6%) compared to males (76.8%).
• Both Violence against the Person and Public Order offences accounted for the largest proportion of immediate custody receptions, at 18.1% (313) and 17.5% (304) respectively.