§ Mr. ThurnhamTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the annual cost, in each of the last three years, of keeping convicted paedophiles in prison; how many such prisoners there were; what was the average cost per prisoner; what proportion of these prisoners were serving a second or subsequent sentence for such an offence; how much was spent in each year on treatment aimed at reducing the risk to the public of reoffending; and how much was spent in each year on research to improve the effectiveness of such treatment. [12198]
§ Miss WiddecombeResponsibility 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 A. J. Pearson to Mr. Peter Thurnham, dated 29 January 1997:
The Home Secretary has asked me, in the absence of the Director General from the office, to reply to your Question about the costs of keeping convicted paedophiles in prison.
Cost per place figures relating specifically to paedophile offenders are not available. However, the average cost per prisoner for the financial year 1995–96 was £466 per week.
It is not possible to identify paedophiles from prison population statistics as neither Prison Service statistics, nor central databases record the age of the victim for all offences.
The overall cost of treatment programmes is not available but the cost of the staff time involved in delivering and supervising the Sex Offender Treatment Programme is estimated at £2,000 per prisoner.
Some monitoring of the Sex Offender Treatment Programme is built in to the cost per prisoner and cannot be disaggregated from the overall cost. The Home Office has commissioned independent research evaluating the Sex Offender Treatment Programme (The STEP Project).
216WOver the past three years the STEP Project expenditure totals £191,000, made up as follows:
1994–95: £72,000
1995–96: £67,000
1996–97: £52,000