Matthew Barrett
Unfortunately this is without the levity of my Parliament post last week, but it is interesting. Philip Davies, the Member for Shipley, asked a question of Crispin Blunt, the Minister for Prisons on Wednesday.
Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what recent estimate has been made of the average length of time served by people sentenced to a life term in prison.
Mr Blunt: The following table taken from Offender Management annual table A3.5 published 28 April 2011:
http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/statistics-and-data/prisons-and-probation/oms-quartlery.htm
shows the number of life sentenced prisoners first released during 2010, and their average time served at the point of first release. The average time served by mandatory lifers has increased considerably from around nine years in the late 1970s to 16 years in 2010.