Short custodial disposals from court and the prison population

The aim of this analysis was to explore available data sources to investigate how the number of short sentences (12 months or less) issued by courts related to the number of people in prison serving short sentences (12 months or less).

The analysis presented shows that this is a complex picture but that a significant number of people appear to be moving through the prison system with short custodial sentences several times over a year and that the effect of those multiple short disposals is to extend overall custodial sentence lengths. Whilst a direct extrapolation cannot be made from this analysis to the extension of the presumption against short sentences from 3 months to 12 months in 2019, it is clear that there are a number of complex factors which provide context to the 73% of custodial sentences which were less than 12 months in 2021-22.

Around 20% of all custodial sentences of less than 12 months handed down by courts were given to people arriving to court from the community (meaning they were not on remand or already serving previous prison sentences). The remaining 80% were given to people who were already on remand or were serving previous custodial sentences.