By Rosie Niven | 18 August 2015
An estimated £230m of public money was spent on holding people on remand who did not go on to receive a jail sentence, the Howard League has revealed.
The penal reform charity’s figures show that during 2013, more than 35,000 of those on remand went on to be either acquitted or given non-custodial sentences. This represents almost half of the 72,877 people remanded by courts each year, and the money spent on keeping them in prison would have been enough reverse the government’s cuts to the criminal legal aid budget, the group claimed.
It added that the true cost to the taxpayer is likely to be even higher after ancillary costs of remanding people into custody are taken into account, including prisoner transfers and court administration.
The figures show that 71% of the 36,044 individuals who were remanded into custody by magistrates did not go on to receive a custodial sentence.
In the crown courts, 27% of those remanded were either acquitted or given a non-custodial sentence.
The figures also reveal geographic variations in the proportion of prisoners on remand who did not go on to receive a jail sentence. Some 83% of remanded defendants in Hartlepool were not jailed following their trial, while the figure was 28% in Exeter.
The Howard League said the figures suggest that there is widespread overuse of remand across England and Wales, despite recent changes designed to reduce the number of people locked up needlessly.
Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said remand was currently the key driver of the rising prison population.
‘Our prisons are squalid and our prisoners are idle, yet the courts are continuing to remand innocent people and people accused of petty crime at huge public expense,’ she added.
‘It is time to end this unjust system, which is costing the nation money that could be better spent.’
