§ Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he 743W will publish a table showing the average sentences served by prisoners serving life sentences released in each year since 1945.
§ Mr. Alexander W. LyonThe table is given below. The figures relate only to the initial release of prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment and do not take account of additional time served by those prisoners who have subsequently been recalled to prison. They provide no indication of the time likely to be served by any individual life sentence prisoner, since they do not show the range of the sentences served—which have varied from six months in one case to over 20 years in others. Nor do they take into account the length of time served by those who have not yet been released.
AVERAGE PERIOD OF IMPRISONMENT SERVED IN ENGLAND AND WALES BY PRISONERS SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT Year of release Average period served (to the nearest month) Years Months 1945 8 1 1946 6 11 1947 9 7 1948 5 1 1949 6 5 1950 9 3 1951 5 10 1952 6 3 1953 6 8 1954 8 4 1955 8 5 1956 8 6 1957 7 11 1958 8 — 1959 8 9 1960 6 7 1961 7 10 1962 8 8 1963 7 10 1964 8 7 1965 9 2 1966 8 11 1967 8 3 1968 9 — 1969 9 — 1970 8 7 1971 10 6 1972 9 4 1973 9 2 1974 9 5