What is the UK prison population?

The Ministry of Justice publishes the prison population of England and Wales every week, with the useable operational capacity, which shows how close prisons are to full. Quarterly offender management statistics break the population down by sentence, offence, age and sex.

The MoJ also publishes prison population projections. Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own prison figures.

Official sources: Prison population statistics · Offender management statistics

The latest figure

The newest value is at Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service. More on it: Prison population (England and Wales).

When is the next figure out?

Published weekly, usually on the Monday it describes. Machine route: the GOV.UK Content API (no key) for the publication returns JSON listing each weekly .ods attachment, newest first; the .ods 'Data' sheet holds the figures. The publication URL changes each calendar year (…-2026)

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Headcount
  A count of individual people, each counted once regardless of how many hours they work or how many posts they hold.
• England and Wales
  A single legal jurisdiction, so crime, courts, prisons and death registration statistics are often published for England and Wales together.
• Proven reoffending rate
  The share of offenders who commit another offence within a year that leads to a court conviction or caution. Published by the Ministry of Justice.
• Remand
  Holding a defendant in custody before trial or sentencing. People on remand are counted in the prison population even though they have not been sentenced.
• Prison operational capacity
  The maximum number of prisoners a prison or the whole estate can hold while maintaining good order, security and the proper running of the regime.
• Custodial sentence
  A sentence that sends an offender to prison or a young offender institution. Most adults serve part of the sentence in custody and the rest on licence in the community.

Where the figures come from

• Find Case Law, legislation.gov.uk, the Sentencing Council and UK court records
  How to search UK court judgments on Find Case Law, check if a law is in force on legislation.gov.uk, and read sentencing, tribunal and CPS data.
• Defence, foreign aid and counter-terrorism statistics (MOD, FCDO, NATO, OECD, Home Office)
  Where to find official UK defence spending, armed forces numbers, NATO comparisons, foreign aid (ODA), arms export licences and terrorism statistics.
• Home Office statistics (immigration, borders and policing)
  Find Home Office figures on small boat arrivals, asylum, hotels, visas, returns, detention, police numbers and stop and search, and how to read them.

Related questions

• What is the Crown Court backlog?
• Where can I find official crime statistics?
• How do I find the crime rate in my area?

This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about crime, police, prisons and courts: all Crime, police, prisons and courts questions.