Prisoners' Release
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of prison discharges taking place on a Friday evening or weekend.
Answered by Jake Richards
The Friday Releases scheme was brought into force on 30 November 2023, introducing a presumption against releasing offenders on a Friday, therefore reducing risks linked to limited weekend services and helping keep the public safer by lowering the reoffending risk.
Analysis published in 2022 showed the reoffending rate within 2 weeks among adults released on Fridays from custodial sentences of less than 12 months was around 1.6 percentage points higher compared to the rest of the week. This analysis did not control for any other factors which could have impacted the results.
Between October and December 2025, there was a total of 14,643 prison releases. The attached file sets out the number of offenders released from prison on Friday evening (18:00 onwards), Saturday and Sunday, split by prison region, between October and December 2025 (the latest published period for prison releases).
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