Women in Custody

[Supplementary Tables A2, B2 and M1]

The (average daily) population of women in prison custody increased by around 8%, from 319 in 2023-24 to 345 in 2024-25. This is a slightly faster rate of growth than the overall population (+4.5% over the same period), although women still comprised just 4% of the average daily prison population in 2024-25, unchanged from the previous year. The population of men increased by around 4.4% between 2023-24 and 2024-25, from 7,540 to 7,870.

Figure 16 shows that the sentenced population of women increased by 19 (+9%) from 217 in 2023-24 to 235 in 2024-25. The untried population remained at approximately the same level (72, -1) and the population convicted awaiting sentence CAS increased slightly (+8 to 37) over the same period.

Figure 16: The average daily population of women in prison increased in 2023-24 and 2024-25, driven by a rise in the sentenced population

Average daily population of women in prison by legal status, 2009-10 to 2024-25

Figure 17 shows that between 2023-24 and 2024-25  the men’s CAS and sentenced populations rose (CAS: from 287 to 314, +9.6%; sentenced: from 5,799 to 6,131, +5.7%), while the men’s untried population fell by 33 (-2.4%) from 1,408 to 1,375.

Figure 17: The average daily population of men in prison increased in 2024-25, driven by a rise in the sentenced population

Average daily population of men in prison by legal status, 2009-10 to 2024-25

As a share of their respective populations, the proportion of women on remand (untried or convicted awaiting sentence(CAS)) on an average day has consistently exceeded that of men. This pattern held between 2023-24 and 2024-25, although there were small reductions in both groups (to 31% of women and 21% of men).

Index offence groups

[Supplementary table M2]

In a sentenced population of 235 on an average day in 2024-25, 134 women had index offences[i] in Group 1 (Non-sexual crimes of violence), an increase of 8% from 124 in 2023-24. This is around the same as the change in the population of sentenced women overall, and Group 1 remained the largest offence group in 2024-25.

The other larger index offence groups, Group 3 (Crimes of dishonesty) and Group 5 (Crimes against society), increased in line with or at a slower rate than the sentenced population overall (+8% and +1% respectively). The population with index offences in the other offence groups remained at very low levels in 2023-24 (less than 10 on an average day) (Figure 18).

Figure 18: Increases between 2023-24 and 2024-25 within index offence groups were broadly in line with the sentenced population change overall.

Sentenced index offence groups of women – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2024-25

Index sentences

[Supplementary table M3]

Figure 19 shows the index sentence[ii] profile of the (average daily) population of women to 2024-25. For clarity of presentation, the range of shorter sentence bands presented in the supplementary tables and in the interactive analysis tool have been combined in the charts in this section into the ‘≤ 1 year’ group.

There was an increase in the population serving and ‘>4 and ≤ 10 years’ index sentences, which rose by 23% from 27 to 34 on an average day in 2024-25.

The population serving index sentences of up to 1 year and between 1 and 2 years increased by 10% and 11% respectively; faster than the sentenced population of women as a whole. These two groups together make up 53% of the population of sentenced women at 83 (+8) and 41 (+4) each on average in 2024-25 (change from 2023-24).

The population with ‘> 2 and ≤ 4 years’ index sentences increased by 7%, i.e. broadly at the rate than the sentenced population of women rose overall.

Figure 19: Increases in the population of women serving short index sentences, and sentences of 4 to 10 years in 2024-25

Index sentence length populations of women in custody – average daily populations, 2009-10 to 2024-25