§ Ms Janet AndersonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many women served202W custodial sentences for fine defaulting in each year since 1989. [17206]
§ Mr. Michael ForsythResponsibility for this matter has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Derek Lewis to Ms Janet Anderson, dated 19 April 1995:
The Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Question asking how many women served custodial sentences for fine defaulting in each year since 1989.The number of women received into prison for fine default in the years requested are as follows:
Number 1989 868 1990 845 1991 976 1992 1,044 19931 1,342 19941 1,440 1 Provisional figures. Information on the population of female fine defaulters from 1982–1992 is published in "Prison statistics England and Wales" (Cm 2581, Table 7.1 of the 1992 edition). The average time served is also shown in that table and is about one week.The average number of females serving sentences for fine default at any given time in 1993 and 1994 were 21 and 22 persons respectively.