<p>It is a long standing feature of the system that those convicted of the most serious offences may receive life sentences or extended determinate sentences, meaning they must serve at least two-thirds of the custodial element of the sentence before being considered for release by the Parole Board. Since implementation of the Police Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, those given a standard determinate sentence of 4 years or more for the most serious sexual and violent offences, must serve two-thirds of the sentence in custody before automatic release.</p><p>Offenders given standard determinate sentences for less serious offences must be released automatically at halfway.</p><p>We are unable reliably to determine the number of such releases since 2010 within cost limits. To obtain an accurate, publishable figure would require linking to and manually checking hundreds of thousands of individual prisoner records and matching sentence data with data on adjudications over the 12-year period.</p>