Written question asked by Tim Loughton (Conservative) on Thursday, 11 December 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 15 December 2008. It was answered by Lord Hanson of Flint (Labour) on Tuesday, 13 January 2009 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Children in Care: Custodial Treatment

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many prisoners in England were previously children in care at any time during their lives and received a custodial sentence when they were juveniles.

Answer: I have been asked to reply.Information on the total number of prisoners in all prison establishments in England and Wales who were in local authority care at some point when under the age of 16 is not centrally available.However, a social exclusion unit report ““Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners”” published in 2002 reported that 27 per cent. of the prison population had been taken into care as a child against an average across the general population of 2 per cent.We are not able to give the information requested regarding who of those in care had also received custodial sentences while juveniles.These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems, which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.

Secondary information